Human Rights Writers Association of Nigeria, HURIWA, has described as timely, the decision of the Minister of the Federal Capital Territory, FCT, Nyesom Wike, to profile vehicles in the nation’s capital beginning from January 2025.
DAILY POST reports that Wike had recently announced plans by the Federal Capital Territory Administration to gradually phase out tricycle operations in parts of the Abuja city centre.
The Minister also disclosed plans to conduct security profiling of commercial buses and taxi operators within the FCT, adding that they must also operate with the Abuja taxi colour.
“From January next year, nobody will operate as a taxi driver or a bus driver without approval from the security, without security profiling you, and without the Abuja colour,” the minister had said.
Supporting the move, HURIWA expressed fear that the police or the Department of State Services must ensure that this exercise of vetting or profiling commercial drivers is not converted to avenues for coordinated exploitation and extortion of drivers.
The group proposed to the FCT Administration to set up a digitalised and computerised office for the purposes of the security profiling of commercial drivers, suggesting that the office 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.
It warned against the imposition of fees payable by the drivers whose security profiles are to be captured, noting that unscrupulous individuals, agents or criminal barons could infiltrate and corrupt the system.
HURIWA suggested that a data bank of commercial drivers be uploaded and domiciled with the FCT transportation and legal secretariat and accessible by Abuja residents who need such information whilst seeking judicial redress in cases involving commercial vehicle operators.
The group advised that divers of taxis and buses “coming into Abuja from all parts of Nigeria also be profiled to effectively provide fool-proof protection to FCT residents”.
HURIWA backs Wike’s move to ban unpainted taxes, buses