Despite the cumbersome procedures and rigours currently being experienced by prospective applicants for the nation’s new driver’s licence, Nigeria has among the shortest expiration periods (of three years) globally for the document, BusinessDay investigations reveal.
The bureaucratic bottlenecks and poor logistics bedevilling the process have made the quest to obtain a driver’s licence in Nigeria a nightmare. Corrupt officials inside the system, hand in glove with external agents, are demanding huge bribes from frustrated applicants to ‘help facilitate’ the process.
This ‘facilitation’ usually takes the form of helping applicants to jump documentation queues which can ordinarily take several months.
“It provides avenues for desperate applicants to bribe their way through, as well as encourages monetisation of some stages that require applicants to be physically tested before licences are issued,” said an observer familiar with the process.
The new driver’s licence was introduced by the Federal Roads Safety Commission (FRSC) in collaboration with the Joint Tax Board (JTB).
“It is worrisome that the JTB had set June 30, 2014 as the deadline for prospective drivers to migrate to the new unified driver’s licence, in spite of the fact that the nation lacks enough capturing centres, and equipment, including adequate power supply to seamlessly process the deluge of applications flooding into the few existing centres,” the observer added.
While Nigeria pegs the validity of its driver’s licence at three years, in the United Kingdom, the tenure of the document is at least 10 years. In Canada, it is five years; South Africa 10 years; and five years for Zambia, Kenya, Zimbabwe and Ghana.
Reuben Sunday, a Diaspora Nigerian who has been living in Calgary, Canada, for more than 10 years told BusinessDay on telephone that upon the expiration of any driver’s licence in Canada, the licensing authorities send a message to remind the holder of such document that the document has expired and needs to be renewed.
The driver, according to him, would be issued a temporary permit, allowing him to drive for two weeks before a new permanent one would be issued by the Registry upon submission of the expired one.
Also responding to BusinessDay enquiries, Mirko Vivien said that in Germany, “Once a driver’s licence has been issued to any prospective applicant, such valid document becomes a personal property for life. It is not renewable and can only be withdrawn or invalidated on account of old age, drunk driving, upon conviction for any gross misconduct while driving, as the case may be.”
Ekwoh Felix, a Ghanaian, reports that driver’s licences in that country have a six-year span in the first instance, and are then renewable every two years, through a simple biometric thumb print capture.
Meanwhile, in Nigeria, lucky holders of the driver’s licence which has a three-year validity period must return to any of the capturing centres, upon expiration, to start the entire process all over as if for the first time.
Concerns are also being raised in Nigeria about the implementation of some of the set rules, guidelines and procedures that applicants undergo before they can qualify for biometric image capturing.
Our reporter found that while the licensing authorities are supposed to conduct eye and other eligibility tests, including aptitude and written tests, there are still cases where these are skipped for a bribe, thereby defeating the essence and objectives of the exercise.
As early as 6am on weekdays at many of the centres in Lagos, for instance, not less than 400 applicants for the new driver’s licence are seen milling around the Driver’s Licence Capturing centres. Sometimes activities at some of the centres are forestalled either as a result of power failure or failure from the online application facility.
MIKE OCHONMA
