HURIWA Backs Wike On Profiling Of Abuja Taxi Drivers

Pro-democracy advocates: HUMAN RIGHTS WRITERS ASSOCIATION OF NIGERIA (HURIWA) has endorsed and described as salutary and timely, the decision of the Minister of the Federal Capital Territory, FCT, Nyesom Wike, that the FCT Administration to profile taxi drivers in Abuja.

Under the policy unprofiled vehicles in the nation’s capital would be banned from January 2025.

The rights group recalled that the FCT minister further said that all commercial buses in the nation’s capital would be profiled by the Nigeria Police Force and the Department of State Services, DSS.

The FCT minister, Mr. Nyesom Wike made this statement at the FCT Renewed Hope Youth Empowerment Programme in Abuja last Thursday, where he handed over some new cars to beneficiaries to use as taxis.

“They are not paying a dime. No. The government is saying this is our support to feed your family and reduce the cost of transportation in the city. Abuja should compete with other cities in the world,” the minister said in his vow to profile taxi drivers in Abuja.

Welcoming the far-reaching policy by the FCT Administration to secure the lives and property of Abuja residents through the security vetting of taxi and bus drivers in the nation’s capital, the prominent civil Rights advocacy Group: HUMAN RIGHTS WRITERS ASSOCIATION OF NIGERIA (HURIWA) however expressed fear that the police or the Department of State Services must ensure that this exercise of vetting or profiling these commercial drivers isn’t converted to avenues for the coordinated exploitation and systematic extortion of these drivers.

HURIWA is, however, proposing to the FCT Administration to set up a digitalised and computerised office for the purposes of the security profiling of the commercial drivers and that the office should be made up of staff drawn jointly from the FCT commands of the Nigeria Police Force,  the FCT Directorate of Department of State Services (DSS), FCT commands of the Nigerian Civil Defence Corps and Nigerian Immigration Services (NIS) just as the Rights group is warning against imposition of fees payable by these drivers whose security profiles are to be captured or else some unscrupulous individuals, agents or criminal barons could infiltrate and corrupt the system just so they obtain security clearance for their gang members operating as taxi or bus drivers in the FCT and then the objective of implementing the security profiling of drivers would be automatically compromised and defeated inevitably.

HURIWA is of the opinion that a data bank of commercial drivers should be uploaded and domiciled with the FCT transportation and legal secretariat and could be accessed by Abuja residents who need such information whilst seeking judicial redress in cases involving commercial vehicle operators. HURIWA said the divers of taxis and buses coming into Abuja from all parts of Nigeria should also be profiled to effectively provide fool-proof protection to FCT residents. “The prosecution of 1-chance robbers by the government must be widely publicised to serve as deterrent.”

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