My attention has been drawn to a fledging rumor since Tuesday 20th March 2018 that the Commissioner of Police in Akwa Ibom State has banned or is planning to ban the use of all shades of tinted glassed vehicles in the state regardless of permits. If this were true, it goes to imply that all tinted permits issued before now are being retrieved, cancelled, nullified and rendered illegitimate by the State Commissioner of Police. This decision if true as I learned is precipitated by the recent increase of criminal activities with the aide of vehicles with tinted glasses and going by the swiftness and logic of the decision in this case it is indeed a commendable action by the police chief.
However, I do not want to believe the CP has made such orders or is planing to because it would be a rather disturbing if not questionable one in the eyes of the law. And the reasons are in logic and law.
The Motor Vehicles (Prohibition of Tinted Glass) Act as the operative legislation regulating the use of tinted glassed vehicles in Nigeria in Section 1 prohibits tinted glasses on vehicles stating as follows:
“Except with the permission of the appropriate authority designated for the purposes of this Act and for such good cause as may be determined from time to time by the appropriate authority, no person shall cause any glass fitted on a motor vehicle to be tinted; or shaded; or coloured lightly or thickly; or darkened; or treated in any other way, so that the persons or objects in the motor vehicle are rendered obscure or invisible”.
The import of this provision is that use of tinted glass on vehicles without permission is prohibited. Section1(2) proceeds to provide only two exceptional circumstances nay “good cause” where tinted permits can be issued to vehicle owners namely “health reasons and security reasons”. Health wise there are certain medical conditions that require shield from sunlight whereas on security grounds, some offices or agencies are allowed to drive around in tinted glass vehicles. This connotes that the use of tinted glassed vehicle itself is not illegal rather it is the use of a tinted glass vehicle without a permit that is an offence punishable by law.
Thus it is mandatory by law for any person who purchases or acquires a vehicle with tinted glasses to change the glasses within 14 days. This puts to rest the false notion where some persons have attempted to introduce an additional grounds for approval of tinted permit to be vehicles purchased with factory fitted tinted glasses. According to them cars with factory fitted tinted glasses are entitled to permits at the instance of their ‘factory fittedness.’ This is by no means the true position of the law. The law is simple and clear. There are only two grounds to obtain tinted permits – health and security.
The express mention of these grounds exclude those not mentioned as it is said in Latin “Expressio Unius Est Exclusio Alterius”.
Interestingly, these tinted permits can only be issued by the “appropriate authority” defined in Section 2(3) of the Act to mean “the lnspector General of Police or any person or authority authorized by him to give such permission as is contemplated in subsection (1) of section 1…” Thus, the Commissioners of police in every state can by statutory delegation of power from the Inspector General issue tinted permits to vehicle owners.
The pressing question now is whether a State Commissioner of Police can prohibit the use of tinted glassed vehicles in a state regardless of permits? The answer is simple law!
The Prohibition and Permission for tinted glassed vehicles is a matter of legislation enacted by the National Assembly. The Commissioner of Police cannot amend or alter the law. The Inspector General cannot either. They can only regulate the use of it pursuant to the provisions of the law and nothing further. Logically speaking, assuming without conceding that the police possess such powers how then would a state commissioner of police ban the use of tinted vehicles in one state while the Inspector General has not done so all over the nation? What happens when someone drives his tinted glass vehicle from the Federal Capital Territory Abuja with a permit issued under the hand of the Inspector General himself and arrives Uyo only to be arrested at the orders of the state commissioner of police a subject of the original issuer himself? Would that not make the State Commissioner of Police superior to the Inspector General? A caricature indeed on the hierarchy of the police force. The powers of the CP are subject to the law and his boss the IG. He cannot legislate and execute legislation at the same time. The legislature is responsible for law making and to add to the law what is not part of the legislation is an usurpation of the powers of the National Assembly and a threat to democracy. In fact, at the risk of sounding fundamentalistic, neither the Inspector General of Police nor Commissioner of Police even possess the powers to retrieve or nullify a tinted permit once issued.
The law only provides for the power to approve the permit and grounds for such approval. The law does not provide for the powers to nullify or invalidate a permit unilaterally. It is erroneous to assume the powers to permit coterminous with the powers to nullify. Rather with the powers to approve comes the powers not to approve (denial) simpliciter. The law in section 2(3)(b) makes this clear by stating that its “reference to “permission” includes registration” and nothing else. In essence, the powers of the appropriate authority as far as issuance of tinted permit for vehicles is concerned begins and ends with “registration”. So the appropriate authority can either approve the registration or deny same. But once issued that appropriate authority cannot by whims and caprices retrieve, cancel, invalidate or nullify. The court becomes the appropriate authority at this stage. Specifically the Federal High Court.
More so, to provide for powers to invalidate or cancel a permit entails providing grounds for such cancellation which the law is absolutely silent about thereby leaving the buck with the judiciary to decide from evidence presented before it whether the permit was issued by error or fraud.
Now at a further risk of sounding more fundamentalistic I dare to submit that an order by the Commissioner of Police or any appropriate authority to cancel a tinted permit guaranteed by the law is a violation of the fundamental rights of the citizen as guaranteed by chapter IV of the 1999 Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria (As Amended). This is because the “good cause” or grounds for issuance of tinted permit being health and security bother on right to life. To deny such is itself a threat to life either on health grounds or security grounds.
So in order to avoid litigational embarrassment it is my considered and humble opinion that the police first update their records of tinted permits granted so far across the country while they clamp down on vehicles using tinted glasses without permits. They cannot punish the masses for their own inefficiency. The fact that people are using tinted glassed vehicles to commit crimes doesn’t make culpable all owners of tinted vehicles. The police force should act in sync with global best practice and up their game. We cannot always resort to crude methods to solve our problems only to end up causing more problems for ourselves and wonder why we aren’t getting it right like advance countries around us.
And for my fellow citizens please do not drive a tinted car without tinted permit. It is a crime. It takes less than 24 hours to get one in the first place so why turn oneself into an unnecessary fugitive?
My dear very active Mr. Commissioner of Police Akwa Ibom State Command please leave our permitted tinted vehicles alone after all the police themselves drive tinted vehicles without permits.
I am Ewa Okpo Edmund Esq. I write as a lawyer, arbitrator, literati and concerned citizen. Thank you. 08029935535
