The Court of Appeal sitting in Asaba, Delta State has restricted operations of the Federal Road Safety Commission (FRSC) to only federal roads.
The appellate court delivered the judgment in Appeal No. CA/AS/276/2019: FRSC and Darlington Ugo Ehikim.
The court dismissed the appeal filed by the FRSC challenging the judgment of the Federal High Court, Warri, Delta State delivered by Justice E. Nwite which banned the commission from state and local governments’ roads.
The Federal High Court had on January 12, 2019 entered judgement in favour of the plaintiff, who is a member of the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA), Warri and granted all the reliefs sought.
The reliefs included a declaration that the FRSC has no right to operate and/or carry any activity on state and local governments’ roads.
The trial court also issued restraining orders against the commission from operating on roads other than federal highways and also awarded a cost of N10 million against the FRSC.
The plaintiff’s lawyer, Mr. Kunle Edun, commended both the trial and appellate courts for the proper interpretation of the law, adding that by the judgment, FRSC personnel who are on roads inside cities and towns except federal highways have no right to be there, as their operations on such roads which are mainly to extort motorists are illegal.
Edun stated that the Judgment re-emphasised the federal structure of the country because the FRSC being a federal agency should concern itself with federal roads.
Meanwhile, the federal road safety corps (FRSC) says it will appeal the judgement passed by the Court of Appeal sitting in Asaba, Delta State restricting the corps’ operations to only federal roads.
FRSC Corps Marshal, Dauda Biu stated that the corps will seek stay of execution and appeal the decision of the court.
He said the corps is aware of the judgement of the Court of Appeal Asaba Judicial Division from the briefing received from the corps’ Legal Representatives but at the moment, FRSC is yet to obtain a Certified True Copy of the judgement.
He revealed that the implication of the said judgement as reported in the media is that personnel would not be able to attend or rescue crash victims on roads other than Federal roads.
