The Inspector General of Police (IGP), Solomon Arase, has given the National Union of Road Transport Workers (NURTW) two weeks ultimatum to get their vehicles registered and have a proper identification or be thrown out off the roads.
The directive is in an effort to ensure that bad elements that use vehicles for terrorist activities are put under proper check.
The IGP gave the marching order when the President of the NURTW, Najeem Kasim, and his executive team held a crucial meeting in Abuja, on Thursday.
“I will give the national chairman and the secretary a grace of about two weeks, after two weeks, we will start clamping down on vehicles that have no proper identification,” the IGP stressed.
Arase said, “the police cannot be everywhere. We actually require the partnership and cooperation of Nigerians. One body that has the expansive reach and jurisdiction is the NURTW.
“One of the things I want to appeal to you is that we will not stop to make sure that we emplace security in all our motor parks but at the same time I think you people owe it a duty to ensure that the motor parks are secured.
“The state chairmen of the NURTW also owe it a duty to ensure that your members are registered, the vehicles are insured and when it is time for them to renew their papers that they do that.
“One of the areas that we usually have conflict with most of your drivers on the highway is when their papers are expired. The police have the statutory responsibility of ensuring that despite the fact that the road blocks are removed, stop vehicles, try and check to ensure that the person driving the vehicle is actually the owner of the vehicle.
“In Abuja, I think we have a very serious problem, there are these kabukabu that are plying the highways, you will agree with me when you have the issue of insurgency like the one we have in this country, it could be very dangerous.
“You should be able to ascertain how many vehicles are properly registered either in your various local governments you paint them with a particular colour or you use stickers to identify those that are registered so that when ever are asking them question, we should be able to identify them.”
Speaking with journalist, the national president of the NURTW, Najeem Kasin, expressed optimism that the NURTW was going to meet the two weeks dateline.