Rights activist calls Lagos mobile court "a progressive development"

Senior lawyer and rights activist,

According to This Day, these mobile courts will bring sanity and discipline to the streets of Lagos state.

"It is a progressive development. I have just advised the attorney-general that we would not allow the police and the traffic officials to detain people illegally but I have been assured that the penalty for most of the traffic offences shall be community service which I think is a very progressive development. That is going to enforce discipline on our roads and sanity to the system.”

He was supported by another Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN), Dr. Joseph Nwobike.

Nwobike appreciated Governor Akinwunmi Ambode's commitment towards the eradication of traffic offenders.

"This is the best time for it when there are so many cases of unmitigated infraction of environmental laws and traffic regulations in Lagos. I think what the governor and those who head the judiciary have done is to provide a platform that will, by way of trial and punishment, discourage people from engaging in abuse of environmental laws and disobedience of traffic rules.

I will, however, urge that there should be a synergy between the traffic management agency in Lagos and the police in ensuring that this opportunity becomes effective and then allow it to work. I will also call on government to see the possibility of engaging environmental and traffic volunteers to volunteer useful information to government so as to boost tracking and the punishment processes."

So far, the new mobile court has arrested 52 violators, and convicted 41 for traffic offences.

This initiative has also encouraged Sokoto lawmakers to pass a new traffic bill.

Hon. Sanni Yakubu, the Chairman of House Committee on Works and Transportation, Sokoto State, recently visited Lagos Assembly to get traffic control ideas.

"We came to the Lagos State House of Assembly based on the laws before us on traffic management and control in Sokoto State. Lagos State has recorded a lot of successes on transportation. We want to borrow their ideas and take it to our state."