Tints in Vehicle Glasses, You, Police and the Law (I).

Misbau ‘Mislaw’ Lateef 

Factory fitted or manually fitted, opaque or no opaque, vehicle owners and users in the recent time have been on an incessant collision with the Nigerian police authorities over tinted glass in their automobiles. Apparently worried by the waves of insecurity across the country, the police authorities have resorted to unearthing some ‘archaic’ laws in our statute books to stem the tide of what it ostensibly considered as crime prone decoy – using vehicles with tinted glasses. The police authorities whilst insisting it was not banning usage of such vehicles have nonetheless maintained that their owners or users must obtain police permit, a permit supposedly free. And perhaps as free as the police bail!

The position of the police authorities on this issue, and which position can hardly be faulted on the face of it, has been anchored on some laws and ‘the need to effectively tackle contemporary security challenges in the land and ultimately serve the common good of all Nigerians’. Thus, according to the police spoke person, CSP Frank Mba, ‘intelligence reports and empirical statistics at the disposal of the Police Force indicate that majority of crimes relating to terrorism, suicide bombing, kidnapping, gun-running, human trafficking, armed robbery and other related offences are committed with the use of vehicles with tinted glasses as perpetrators of these heinous crimes hide under the cover of tinted glasses to ply their nefarious trade.’ But this is as far as the police argument goes.                              

Never mind however the disconnect between this assertion and the statistics of crime fighting as we all know them. Never mind also the fact that none of the reported incidence of any of ‘these heinous crimes’ has actually been established to have succeeded on account of the usage of vehicles with tinted glass by the criminals. At least, not the very recent one involving the Chairman of Ejigbo L.C.D.A in Lagos State has been attributed to such.

Now, what are the arguments, nay justifications, for the tints in vehicle glasses? In this age and time when vehicles of most vehicles of all manners come with factory fitted tints on their glasses, the reasons for tints in vehicle glasses range from practical to scientific and then aesthetic, all of which are beneficial to the life and property of the car owner or user. Beyond the issue of the privacy the tints offer, and this is rightly so, it is said that tints on vehicles windows panes guard against the striking sunlight in hot weather just as it also saves the upholstery of the car from getting heated, discolored or damaged by ultraviolet rays of sunlight. No wonder vehicles of all manners come with partial tints nowadays.

Furthermore, tinting of vehicle window panes is said to provide a very important safety measure against serious accidents. The tint gives added protection in case of breakage of window glasses as it adheres the glass pieces together when the pane is smashed and does not crumble down, thus saving the occupants from getting injuries. If there is no tint, the window panes will absolutely shatter down into pieces. These and many more the limited space here would not permit have been identified as justifications for tints in vehicle glasses in this age and time. Never however that not a few Nigerians actually use or prefer the tints for no other reason than its inherent fancy, aesthetics! All the same, these are as far as the benefits to you go.

Now back to the police. In what the police authorities have called the need to ‘serve the common good of all Nigerians’ all of the above justifications for tints in vehicle glasses must be subdued to ‘the greater utility’, or so it seemed, of protection of crimes in the society, the incidence of which crimes have been escalated as a result of tints in vehicle glasses!

And trust the Nigerian police, the crackdown so far on motorists has been reminiscent of a similar one during the military eras when the authorities indiscriminately clamped down on tinted glass, green-coloured and black-coloured vehicles – all in the name of fighting crime and preserving national security. But that was the military era with all its aberrations. And this is a democratic dispensation, at least.

Let us now examine the laws the police have dug out from the statutes books to justify their latest indiscriminate crack down on all vehicles with tinted glasses. The police authorities have so far based their clearly unpopular onslaught on the provisions of the National Road Traffic Regulations of 1997 (“N.R.T.R 1997”) on the one hand, and the Motor Vehicles (Prohibition of Tinted Glass) Act, CAP M21 Laws of the Federation of Nigeria, 2004 (“M.V.P.T.G.A 2004”) on the other hand. The N.R.T.R 1997 was a subsidiary legislation deriving its authority from another substantive legislation – Federal Road Safety Commission Act, 2004 (“F.R.S.C.A 2004”). Unlike the N.R.T.R 1997, the M.V.P.T.G.A 2004 on its own is a law properly so called, having the status of an Act of the National Assembly. 

But before going into the details of the N.R.T.R 1997, which as we noted was a subsidiary legislation to the substantive F.R.S.C.A 2004, it is important to pause here to note that the N.R.T.R 1997 gleefully cited and relied upon by the spoke person of the police, CSP Frank Mba, in his numerous media op-eds has actually been repealed since 2004 and replaced with the National Road Traffic Regulations, 2004 (“N.R.T.R 2004”) which came into force on 12^th January, 2004. 

God willing, next week, the concluding part of this piece will show us the very weak and shaky position of the police on this issue as far as the laws go. Do have a pleasant weekend!