The events that unfolded at the 33rd Legislative Sitting of the Rivers State House of Assembly on Thursday highlight a reality that residents of Port Harcourt have endured for far too long: the unchecked recklessness and brazen extortion carried out daily by Vehicle Inspection Officers (VIOs) on our roads.
For an agency created to ensure safety compliance, the VIO in Rivers State has instead mutated into a squad of roadside predators — harassing motorists, intimidating road users, illegally impounding vehicles, and in many cases extorting citizens at will.
The House was right to frown at these excesses, but the time has come for the government to go beyond expressions of displeasure and take decisive action.
Hon. Enemi Alabo George’s motion captured the widespread frustration. What should have been a professional agency dedicated to vehicle inspection and safety has become a law unto itself, overlapping the functions of the Police, FRSC, and other agencies. Instead of ensuring compliance, these officers now embody lawlessness—flagging vehicles without cause, conducting illegal road checks, and carrying out impoundments that have no legal backing.
Nowhere is this abuse more visible than at the Rivers Transport Company (RTC) facility, which VIOs have turned into their unofficial detention camp and extortion centre.
Vehicles seized under dubious circumstances are driven or towed into this facility, and their owners are forced to pay arbitrary sums—often without receipts—just to get their own property back. This is not road safety. This is institutionalized extortion.
Their operations have morphed into a duplication of duties already assigned to the Federal Road Safety Corps (FRSC) and the Nigeria Police. Instead of complementing existing agencies, VIOs bulldoze their way across jurisdictions, creating confusion and chaos. Sadly, it is the ordinary motorist who bears the brunt.
Women motorists in particular have been victims of harassment and intimidation—an unacceptable pattern that lawmakers rightly condemned. When those tasked with protecting the public become the very source of fear and insecurity, the integrity of governance is threatened.
Speaker of the House, Rt. Hon. Martin Chike Amaewhule, spoke the minds of Rivers people when he described the VIOs as “a menace.”
He is correct. The VIO in its current form has abandoned its mandate and embraced impunity.
Inviting the Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of Transport and the Chief Vehicle Inspection Officer is a necessary step, but it must not end as a mere legislative ritual. Rivers State must take bold action:
What Must Be Done Immediately
- Suspend all roadside VIO operations pending a full audit of their activities.
- Shut down all illegal VIO “stations,” including the unauthorized use of the RTC facility.
- Clarify VIO roles to eliminate functional overlap with FRSC and the Police.
- Compile and investigate all public complaints about extortion and harassment.
- Publish official guidelines for VIO engagement with the public—clear, lawful, and enforceable.
- Remove officers found complicit in extortion and corruption.
Without these actions, the VIO remains a rogue force, eroding public trust in government and making the roads more dangerous, not safer.
Beyond VIOs: A State in Need of Urgent Intervention
While the Assembly also addressed the decay in public schools and the urgent need for a master plan to curb flash flooding, the matter of the VIO strikes at the heart of government’s responsibility to protect its citizens from abuse of power.
Rivers people deserve safety, order, and respect—not intimidation at the hands of those paid with public funds.
Governor Siminalayi Fubara now has a compelling opportunity to restore sanity on the roads. A government that tolerates roadside extortion undermines its own legitimacy. The VIOs must be brought to heel—not tomorrow, not next month, but now.
Rivers State has tolerated this menace for too long. Enough is enough.
