He is neither a civil servant nor a top politician. But Adebayo Sodeke, a clergyman, who recently took delivery of a Toyota Camry, 1996 model, cruises around town in his newly acquired automobile with registration number LG 64 AGL, a local government registration number. Ordinarily, Sodeke’s car ought to have been impounded either by the Federal Road Safety Commission, FRSC, or Motor Vehicle Administration Agency, the body authorised to issue genuine vehicle number plates.
Curiously, the clergyman still drives around unmolested, apparently enjoying the illegal cover, which the fake number plate gives his car that obviously has no genuine papers. Sodeke, who said he bought the number plate from FRSC office in Omole, Lagos, admitted that he is neither a civil servant nor a politician, but that he opted for the fake number plates as a cover for his car, which has no genuine documents. “The documents for my vehicle are not complete, and I have to do something to avoid harassment by police officers, FRSC and Vehicle Inspection Officers, VIO,” he told the magazine, last week.
Deji Ilugbaju, another clergyman, also has LA 25 A42, a Lagos State government registration number on his Honda Accord saloon car. Like Sodeke, the documents for the car which was brought in through Seme Border, Republic of Benin, are incomplete. “It is wiser to buy the fake number at N6,000 now that I don’t have much money, rather than spend over N15,000 to regularise the documents for the vehicle,” he said, adding, however, that he plans to process the vehicle’s papers later when “I can afford it.”
Sodeke and Ilugbaju are just two out of several Nigerians who have discovered a smart but illegal way of using fake vehicle number plates to avoid harassment by police and other vehicle inspection authorities. David Onalaja, an auto mechanic and a commercial motorcyclist, popularly called okada, also has Eti-Osa Local Government number plate on his motorcycle. Onalaja, who operates around Agege-Iju-Abule Egba area of Lagos, gleefully told the magazine that the plate number has saved him several times from various police checkpoints, including the motorcycle monitoring unit, an arm of the local government that checks particulars and permits of motorcycles. He disclosed that his dubious act saves him about N5,000 monthly. His words: “I work only in the evening. Each time I approach a police checkpoint or a council officer, I plead with my passenger to pretend we are co-workers returning from work. Though, at times some police officers insist I settle them but I still save more money than if I were to be treated as a commercial motorcyclist.”
Investigations by the magazine, however, show that some motorists and motorcyclists freely using fake private or commercial vehicle number plates do so out of ignorance. Some of them are said to be victims of the several touts operating around the premises of Motor Vehicle Administration Agency. These touts sell the fake numbers to unsuspecting motorists right under the nose of officials of the agency. For instance, Yinka Coker, a motorist, told the magazine that most motorists and motorcyclists buy the fake registration numbers without realising that they are fake. According to him, when the plates are new, they look identical but the fake ones fade faster. “I had also fell victim to the scam when I bought a number plate from a licensing office only to discover that it was fake,” he told the magazine.
Findings by the magazine reveal that on every original number plates, the Nigerian flag is usually on the left edge while the phrase, ‘Peace and Unity’ is legibly inscribed on it. All of these are conspicuously missing on the fake number plate. In their place is the Nigerian coat of arms. Coker added that motorists purchase fake private and government number plates based on negligence on their own part. “How can you drive a car whose documents are incomplete or brought into the country illegally?” he asked, adding that “it may be a stolen car”. According to him, the fake number plates could not have been issued by the licensing office but could be traced to touts that hang around the office.
A source in the Lagos State Motor Vehicle Administration Agency, who pleaded anonymity, claimed that the agency was unaware of the fake government or private number plates. "We only allocate the numbers from the state government to motorists and cyclists. If there is any fake plate number, it is the police that is supposed to alert us after investigation," he told the magazine, adding that the agency is the only body authorised to issue number plates in the state.
But the claims of the official of the agency may have been proved wrong following the recent arrest of Liade Awesu, who specialises in printing and issuing fake number plates, by the police in Ibadan, Oyo State. When questioned by the Police, Awesu, who operated at licensing offices in metropolitan Lagos, said he has been in the illegal business for the past three years and had made a fortune from it. According to him, his modus operandi was to stand at the entrance of the licensing offices in Lagos to scout for people he suspected to be in need of number plates. He said many people easily fell prey to his antics because they wanted to avoid the stress involved in the system. He also said that they did not even mind paying higher than the official price as long as they could get the plates quickly.
Awesu further alleged that he was aided in his illegal activities by government licensing officers who encouraged number plate seekers to patronise him because of the huge returns he made to them on every number plate he sold. “I work at the licensing offices in Lagos not as a staff but as an agent. I go from one licensing office to the other. If business is dull in one licensing office, I quickly move to another. The licensing officers know me very well so they don’t disturb me. Besides, I give them huge returns,” he alleged.
Jonas Agwu, Lagos sector commander, FRSC, explained that the role of the commission is still intact. He said that the law provides that FRSC designs the number plates and the structure is still the way it is without any contradictions. “The gray areas have been tidied up by FRSC and the Lagos State government. Of course you haven’t heard anybody scream that oh, the number plate is fake. All those issues have been tidied up. The commission arrests motorists that use government number plates without proper identification or proof that the vehicle belongs to the government. We don’t sell number plates to motorists,” he clarified, asking, “How can someone prove he or she bought plates form our office? We arrest motorcycles with number plates that are not recommended by our command," he said.
But the Directorate of Road Traffic Services has intensified action to stamp out fake vehicle number plates. Vivian Uttah, head, safety and enlightenment, lamented that faking of vehicle documents and number plates were denying government of its revenue. She disclosed that officials of the directorate have been able to apprehend a good number of people with fake particulars and number plates who either came in for the renewal of their vehicle documents or were accosted on the road during routine operation checks by men of the directorate.
Uttah says: "Investigations revealed that, touting became rampant in 2006 and, so far, the directorate has dealt with the reported cases decisively as all those arrested have been handed over to the Nigeria Police for prosecution. We assure members of the public that the directorate would not rest on its laurels until faking of vehicle number plates and documents were eradicated, adding that vehicle number is an issue of the state. We had to confiscate about 100 fake number plates and our interrogations of the persons found with the fake number plates revealed that most of them were issued by touts in Lagos and Kaduna.” She cautioned the public who purchase Federal Capital Territory number plates in Lagos, Kaduna and some other states to desist from doing so as they could be patronising touts who would, in turn, dole out fake number plates to them.
Agwu: FRSC designs the number plates
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