Ibraheem Dooba: How President Buhari Could Make Instant Cash

Dr Ibraheem Dooba

No doubt, Muhammadu Buhari will face certain challenges upon taking the presidential seat on May 29. One of them might be shortage of funds to make sure his cabinet performs. Yet another could be the arduous task to make the Nigerian road users drop their deadly driving habits. The Naij columnist Ibraheem Dooba has an idea of how President Buhari could solve both these problems by… combining them.

The views and opinions expressed in this article are solely those of the original author. These views and opinions do not necessarily represent those of Naij.com, its editors or other contributors.

Story highlights:

— Muhammadu Buhari’s cabinet would need money to execute even the most basic functions of any government.

— Nigerian road users are killed by fellow road users on a daily basis, and their productive hours are wasted because of reckless driving and faulty conveyances.

— To restore sanity on our roads, President Buhari should ask every Nigerian driver to undergo a driving test.

Nigeria is broke. President Goodluck Jonathan made it so. Jonathan has run our country aground, and we’re now like a ship stuck in the sand without the tide to lift us. He has bankrupted us.

That is why the incoming cabinet of Muhammadu Buhari needs money — immediate cash — to execute even the most basic functions of any government. Therefore, many people, including those who are complicit in ruining our economy, are suggesting ways to raise income. Some are ways simple, others are extreme. The governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria, for example, has suggested that the Buhari-led administration should sell some of our oil assets to gain money.

What I’m suggesting is not that dramatic. Yet, it would give the government the necessary ready money, however small; but, more than anything, this method would restore sanity on our roads.

Nigerian road users are killed by fellow road users on a daily basis, and their productive hours are wasted because of reckless driving and faulty conveyances.

Being behind a wheel confers a good deal of powers that should be paired with a great deal of responsibility. Therefore, to restore sanity on our roads, President Buhari should ask every Nigerian driver, young or old, to undergo a driving test.

If you know how to drive, the test would not be a problem to you. If you don’t know how to drive, the test would keep you off our roads.

But the test should go beyond just physical actions of setting mirrors and parking skills. It should also check one’s patience, lane discipline, along with other attributes that lend themselves to the fulfilment of the huge responsibility of operating a vehicle. In other words, the test should be deliberately designed to flunk out the impatient and insufferable drivers and prevent them from using our roads.

Those wanting to open a training centre would fulfil the necessary requirements and pay a fee of N50,000. Also, it should be taken into account that the demands for driving a car with an automatic transmission are different from those for a car with a manual transmission. Therefore, the centres should be categorized. To train or test auto drivers only, you pay the entry license fee of N50,000; to train both, you pay N100,000.

The cost of testing should be affordable to prevent people from dodging it. It could be N3,000: N2,000 goes to the government, while N1,000 is retained by the testing centre. Those who fail would go for mandatory training that costs at least, say, N10,000: N7,000 for the government, and N3,000 for the training school. Whether you needed a certificate for auto, or for manual, the cost would remain the same: N3,000 for test, N10,000 for training. Nonetheless, the acquired certificate or license would specify which transmission you’re qualified to drive.

Any training school or testing centre that certifies anybody unworthy of the certification would be put on a watch list. Vehicle inspection officers should do random testing of individual certificate-holders.

Should you fail such random test, your certificate is withdrawn, as is the licence of the training or testing centre after unsuccessful attempts by three individuals.

As the foregoing shows, this concept could solve at least three problems:

– return rationality to our roads,

– generate employment for Nigerians, and

– return revenue to the government.

Indeed, President Buhari’s government could throw this bone to state governments that are lamenting lack of funds to pay salaries from. The idea even ties neatly with the fact that the vehicle inspection officers are under the jurisdiction of the states.

Would there be any drawbacks?

I agree with the University of Chicago economist Steven Levitt and New York Times journalist Stephen J. Dubner, the authors of Freakonomics and Think Like A Freak, who stated that, however an incentive is designed, there are always individuals who will abuse it. With this in mind, it is customary to find weaknesses in ideas and seek resourceful ways to plug the holes. This does not justify throwing up our hands in the air and saying “It wouldn’t work,” as often happens here.

“If there is one mantra a Freak lives by,” the aforementioned authors wrote, “it is this: people respond to incentives. As utterly obvious as this point may seem, we are amazed at how frequently people forget it, and how often it leads to their undoing.”

The most obvious shortcoming would be Nigerians (testing centres and trainers) with the desire to use the situational power to assert their authority. Qualified drivers could be denied the certificates for economic reasons, or simply for someone’s sadistic pleasure. Still, measures can be created to reduce such probability and other disadvantages as much as possible.

The money generated may not be enough, but it is a fast way to make at least some. Also, out of nothing, the government would have created jobs for more than 100,000 Nigerians. To boot, even our life expectancy might increase.