IF there is any agency that has been regularly in the limelight, albeit negatively, it is the Edo State Transport Management Agency (EDSTMA). It is one agency set up by the government to knock discipline into our roads but whose activities and actions have elicited myriads of complaints from the citizens they are set up to serve.
The latest of such was our report  recently in which one Kingsley Eribo acting in concert with two  officials of EDTSMA jumped into the vehicle of the Deputy Editor of the NIGERIAN OBSERVER, Comrade Leo Atakpu  deceived him and collected his car keys and ran away towards the Oba Market.  Those invited by the said Kindsley Eribo stayed with him by his car and after listening to his complaints lured him away to report Eribo to their supervisor, only to return to where he left the car to discover that it had been driven away by Kingsley Eribo.
The Editor  was later tricked to the Ministry of Transport, Edo State where he alleged that he was compelled to pay the sum of Ten thousand four hundred Naira (N10,400) unreceipted even when he demanded for an Edo State Government receipt,  a report that was denied the following day by Head of Operations of EDSTMA, Amadin Owas.
THE denial by the Ministry of Transport notwithstanding,  the gangster manner in which the  Editor was dispossessed of his car is contrary to the provisions of the Law establishing EDSTMA in the state.  Even if the Editor contravened the law, which the EDSTMA officials were not able to prove, they ought to have towed his vehicle or ensure that the owner of the car accompanied them to their office in the vehicle and not for the EDSTMA officials  to drive the vehicle to their premises without the knowledge of the owner.
We recall that at the peak of numerous complaints from members of the public on the nefarious activities of some  EDSTMA officials, the Edo State Comrade Governor, Adams Oshiomhole visited the agency and cautioned officers and men  to be more civil  in the discharge of their duties and that they should act within the ambits of the law. In this unfortunate incident, EDSTMA acted as the Judge and Jury in their own case, without offering the Editor an opportunity to defend himself.
IT is against this background that we call on concerned authorities to investigate the cases of continued outcry from members of the public, some bordering on right abuses and extortion by officers and men of the Edo State Ministry of Transport, and introduce reforms that would give their operations a human face, while plugging all loop holes for leakage of government revenues.
We advocate reforms that should provide for more decent ways of apprehending suspects of traffic offences, instead of the current approach of resorting to robbery-like method of dispossessing suspects of their vehicles only to be told to go and recover such from  the premises of Ministry of Transport.
WE also recommend training and retraining of Officers and men of EDSTMA to empower them with the right skills to discharge their duties with utmost civility and decency. They also need anti-graft trainings to avoid giving government a bad name through corrupt tendencies and practices.