The Lagos government is not smiling as it has vowed to send more people to jail for flouting the traffic laws of the state.
Six motorists have been summarily sent to prison for three months by an Ogba Magistrates' Court after they were arraigned by the Lagos State Environmental Sanitation Corps Agency (LASECORPS), for allegedly buying goods in traffic.
Punch reports that apart from the drivers, some commuters and petty traders who flouted the state's traffic laws were given the same treatment.
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It was gathered that the convicts were arrested by the Corps officials at the Ikeja Along end of the Lagos-Abeokuta Expressway for allegedly patronizing traffic hawkers as well as those who sold the goods.
Apart from the conviction, vehicles belonging to the offenders including a Honda Accent, Hiace, Toyota Hilux, Toyota Sienna, taxi cabs and commercial buses were also impounded by the agency.
The suspects who were arrested in the raid by the Corps were accused of breaching the environmental law and brought before a magistrate, Olayiwola Ogundare of the Ogba Magistrate’s Court, who sentenced them to three months’ imprisonment each.
Ogundare, however, gave the accused persons an option of N10, 000 fine each to be paid on the spot, adding that each of the motorists should pay additional N20,000 fine into the state coffers.
The Head of Public Affairs Unit for LASECORPS, Rahmat Alabi, said the arrest was in line with the Environmental Sanitation Law, 2015, emphasizing the agency determination to fight the menace of highway hawking.
“The corps marshal believes that the enforcement of the Environmental Sanitation Law, 2015, that makes both buyers and sellers liable, will send the expected signal and halt the prevalence of the illegal highway hawking and street trading in the metropolis.
If there are no buyers, there will be no sellers,” she said.
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However, many Nigerians have kicked against the judgment and the law citing the biting recession that has plagued the country in the past two years. They argue the state government has been making life difficult for the masses with some of their law and pronouncements.
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