CORPS MARSHAL RESTATES COMMITMENT TO RULE OF LAW

The Corps Marshal and Chief Executive of the Federal Road Safety Corps (FRSC), Osita Chidoka has restated his commitment to the observance of the rule of law in administering the Corps.

He stated this in his welcome address at the 2011 FRSC Annual Lawyers Conference held at the Golden Royale Hotel Enugu, Enugu State.

Declared open by the Governor of Enugu State, Barrister Sullivan Chime, who was represented by his Deputy, Mr Sunday Onyebuchi, he commended FRSC for organising the conference and stressed that in view of its importance in creating awareness on legal matters among the officers, it should be sustained.

According to him, if legal officers from military and paramilitary organisations could be brainstorming on issues affecting the fundamental human rights of the citizens from time to time, that would go a long way in reducing cases of human rights abuses by them.

“As the custodians of law and order, it is important that legal officers from the military and paramilitary organisations come together regularly to discuss issues that affect the rights of the citizenry. Apart from creating awareness on issues of human rights abuses, the public could also become sensitised on the challenges the law enforcement officers face in enforcing the laws. This conference is a positive development, and I hope it will be sustained,” he stated.

While stating that he would observe all the due processes and guided by the rule of law in carrying out his functions, the Corps Marshal pledged that he would work hard to sustain the civil image earned by the Corps over the years. This he said will be done by laying greater emphasis on education, rather than enforcement as the Corps operational strategy.

“It is in line with this core value that we have remained committed to sustaining the use of education in our campaigns.
“And it is for that reason that even with amendments done to the original laws setting up the Corps which empowered our personnel to bear arms; we exercised restraint in arming them,” he stated.

The Corps Marshal called on officers, especially patrol teams to be civil in their approaches to law enforcement, stating that under no circumstances should they compromise the civil image of the Corps.

“We believe and insist that enforcement should form the last line of our operational strategies and unless enlightenment tools have been firmly exhausted, we would not embark on enforcement. This in fact, has been our guiding principle and we hope to stick to it.
“We are convinced by the results we are getting from this novel operational strategy and believe that if sustained it is capable of addressing the challenges of human rights abuse by the security agencies,” he further stated. 

The Corps Marshal further charged participants to carefully look at all the legal issues affecting the Corps, discuss them and proffer appropriate solutions as well as seizing the opportunity provided by the conference to look at the framework guiding the operation of the Corps, examine areas of necessary amendments and deal with cases of lacuna. He specifically called on the legal officers of the Corps serving in the various Commands to discuss their peculiar problems and proffer common solutions to them.

In addition, he called on the participants from other services to feel free to share their peculiar experiences and knowledge with their counterparts from the Corps in order to find common solutions to the legal challenges affecting the different services and Nigeria in general.

“It is my hope that at the end of the conference, you will come up with useful recommendations that could further improve the legal framework as well as ethical conduct of the lawyers handling all legal matters brought to them,” he stated.

The three day conference which has as its theme, “Safer Roads, Fuller Lives by Law,” is being attended by lawyers from FRSC, legal officers from the military, paramilitary and civil society organisations with papers on relevant legal subjects being presented by experts in the field.