By
Dr. Bolaji O. Akinyemi
In the theatre of Nigerian governance, there are policies birthed from vision, and there are policies conceived in greed. The latest push by the Nigeria Police Force for motorists to secure a tinted glass permit is no vision. It is a venture. It is commerce wrapped in a uniform. It is the commodification of authority at a time when the governed are gasping for air.
Nigeria today is an economy on life support. The citizen is the oxygen tank. And the state, rather than heal, has turned parasitic — sucking from that very tank. Amid spiraling inflation, petrol prices that have stripped families of mobility, and a currency that now trembles before the dollar, the Police Force has found a new gold mine: the tinted glass permit.
PROFITEERING DISGUISED AS POLICY
Let us not be naïve. This is not about security. It is about revenue. This is not about protecting Nigerians. It is about policing Nigerians for profit. The permit fee is not a token — it is a toll gate erected between a citizen and the legal use of their own vehicle. Multiply that “token” by millions of motorists, and you will understand that this is not a regulation; it is a multi-billion-naira racket.
For years, motorists have paid for registration, roadworthiness, insurance, and countless other levies. Now, under the economic weight of survival, they are being compelled to fund yet another pipeline — one that empties not into national development but into the vaults of an institution infamous for monetizing its powers.
THE DEADLINE STRANGLEHOLD
As though the financial insult were not enough, the Police have placed a pistol on the table — a short, unforgiving deadline. Nigerians are told: pay up quickly or be criminalized. There is no room for public consultation. No grace for financial planning. No adequate sensitization. The speed is deliberate; haste is the smokescreen of exploitation.
A BROKEN SYSTEM FOR A FORCED COMPLIANCE
Attempt compliance and you meet a dead portal. The online registration platform is already down. Yet, the countdown continues. This is governance by frustration — set an impossible task, then penalize the people for failing to achieve it.
DUPLICATION: THE MONUMENT OF WASTEFULNESS
And then, the insult to reason: data recapture. Even if you register with your BVN or NIN — systems that already hold your biometric fingerprints, facial images, and complete identity profiles — you must still present yourself for another round of capturing. Why? Because a bureaucracy that runs on waste cannot survive on efficiency. The Police insist on “fresh capturing” not because it is necessary, but because every step of the process must justify the cost they intend to extract.
THE MORAL BANKRUPTCY OF SUCH POLICIES
What we are witnessing is the unholy marriage between state power and institutional greed. It is the normalizing of extortion as governance. It is the audacity to milk the people in broad daylight, in the name of the law.
The tinted glass permit is not just a permit. It is a parable — of a government that governs with the mindset of a merchant. Of a Police Force that has perfected the art of multiplying toll gates in the lives of those it is sworn to protect.
If Nigerians keep quiet today, the tinted glass permit will become the template for tomorrow’s extractions. Our silence will be the fertile soil from which the next exploitative policy will sprout.
The people must speak. Loudly. Relentlessly. For in a failing economy, the cost of silence is always greater than the cost of resistance.
Dr. Bolaji O. Akinyemi is an Apostle and Nation Builder. He’s also President Voice of His Word Ministries and Convener Apostolic Round Table. BoT Chairman, Project Victory Call Initiative, AKA PVC Naija. He is a strategic Communicator and the C.E.O, Masterbuilder Communications.
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