A pro-accountability group, League of Patriots has threatened to sue the office of the Accountant General of the Federation if it obliges the Federal Road Safety Commission FRSC a request to refund it the sum of N2,308,843,267.20 (Two Billion, Three Hundred and Eight Million, Eight Hundred and Forty Three Thousand, Two Hundred and Sixty Seven Naira, Twenty Two Kobo) which the FRSC described as operating surplus for 2024 fiscal year.
The group said that the time has come for the Federal Government and all the relevant anticorruption agencies to shine a forensic searchlight on the FRSC. It further said that there are high chances that the FRSC is not remitting all that comes to it. The group said it is aware of the many grants FRSC receives from local and foreign donors, which are unaccounted for to date.
“Leakages and unreported revenues have continued to characterize the operations of the current Shehu Mohammed-led Road Safety Management Team. There are many unreported sources of revenue. Road safety has its radio station. While many privately owned stations that started operation later than the road safety’s have continued to rake in millions of naira in profit, FRSC has not declared a dime as revenue from that investment. Instead, it keeps cornering hundreds of millions of Naira as money spent on publicity and advertisements.
The group said that in the 2025 overhead budget proposal, FRSC has projected to spend a whopping sum of N740,000,000 on publicity and advertisement despite owning and operating its own radio station. The group said this money would end up in the personal pockets of the commission’s management staff. It also said that FRSC’s claim that it only generated N30,306,700 from sales of unserviceable items in 2024 is another falsehood taken too far.
The League accused the commission of pocketing grants running into hundreds of millions of naira it receives from local and international partner organisations and donor agencies.
“The Federal Road Safety Commission is one of the agencies that receive grants from international donor agencies. These grants are supposed to aid its operations and efficiency. To date, these grants have not been accounted for in any of their financial records. We have a list of these donors and our next step is to write them to stop those grants until the commission braces its culture of accountability”
The group reiterated the need for the Federal Government to initiate a forensic audit on the Federal Road Safety Commission to ascertain why a revenue-generating agency like road safety was boastful of remitting a paltry N3,251,311,832.27 into the Consolidated Revenue Fund Account. The group said it was high time the Federal Government reviewed the perennial anomalies, glaring diversion of funds under guises of operational expenditures, including the inability of the Commission to creatively position the commission for optimum performance.
“Despite allocating huge resources to safety campaigns, and personnel training, accidents on Nigerian roads have continued unabated, and the commission’s personnel have continued to engage in woeful manners with motorists across the country. Unfortunately, a once revered Corp has become a laughing stock in the eyes of the public because of poor management.
Speaking during a virtual meeting, exclusively monitored by LeadingReporters, the group said that it is time the FG either repeals the act establishing the commission or merges it with the VIO that has shown better innovative strategies in road safety monitoring and enforcement.
The League of Patriots, popularly known as the “League” is a Texas-based Nigerian Pro-Good Governance group that works in collaboration with many Nigerian anti-corruption civil society organizations. Its membership is drawn from patriotic Nigerian professionals across the Americas, Europe, Asia, and Africa. The group meets virtually every month to assess performances in strategic government agencies and ministries and proffer workable solutions.