By Ismail Auwal
A High Court sitting in Kano has declared the arrest of private motorcycle riders carrying a passenger by the state Road Traffic Agency (KAROTA) as illegal.
The suit was filed by the nine plaintiffs challenging the agency’s rights to arrest and convict motorcycle owners for carrying other persons on personal ground.
The presiding Judge, Nasir Saminu, also ordered the road agency to pay the sum of N500,000 to three out the nine plaintiffs.
At the court session attended by our reporter the judge also ordered KAROTA to return the fines collected from the plaintiffs and to pay them the sum of N100,000 paid on the cause of the prosecution.
The Judge issued the final judgment after over a year of hearing arguments from counsels representing both parties in the suit.
SAHELIAN TIMES gathered that Karota officials had, in 2021, arrested the nine plaintiffs for carrying other people on their motorcycles.
In an interview with SAHELIAN TIMES, one of the plaintiffs, Bello Basi, stated that they have been in court for nearly a year and have not relented on their efforts.
“We filed a suit to seek interpretation on whether it is within the agency’s authority to arrest anyone simply because he was carrying someone on his motorcycle,” he explained.
According to a court document obtained by SAHELAIN TIMES, a High Court sitting in Ungoggo has ordered that the agency refrain from arresting or fining “motorcyclists who carry another person other than for commercial purposes” until September 2020.
Kano State first introduced the law banning motorcycles from carrying passengers in January 2013 following a series of attacks by gunmen on motorbikes.
Also, the ban was reintroduced in September 2017 as part of measures against insecurity in the state.
Similarly, on June 18th,2020, the Managing Director, Kano Road Traffic Agency (KAROTA), Alhaji Baffa Babba Dan Agundi announced the ban at a news conference in the state.
