Justice Akintayo Aluko of the Federal High Court, Lagos, has restrained the Federal Road Safety Corps (FRSC) from arresting or imposing any fine or punishment on drivers for driving vehicles with faded number plates without a court order.
Justice Aluko made the declaration while delivering judgment in a suit marked FHC/L/CS/253/2024, filed by Chinwike Ezebube against the FRSC.
Ezebube had argued that since the FRSC is the sole designer and producer of vehicle plate numbers in Nigeria, it is responsible for the quality and durability of the vehicle number plates.
The plaintiff, therefore, maintained that the FRSC cannot penalise or threaten to penalise him and or other Nigerians for the depreciating quality, durability, fading or peeling off of the colours and characters of the number plates.
Delivering judgment on the suit, Justice Aluko, after perusing all the processes filed by the parties and the authority cited and after citing a plethora of authorities, determined all the questions in favour of the plaintiff.
In his judgment, Justice Aluko held that while the defendant cannot criminalise the use of faded vehicle number plates, the plaintiff has a duty to approach the defendant to replace his faded vehicle number plate upon payment of the requisite fees for that purpose.
