_©️ Chinedu Agu_
For some time now, the activities of persons operating under the name of Vehicle Inspection Officers, popularly called VIO, have become a serious source of concern to motorists and road users in Imo State. Their presence on public roads has increasingly assumed the character of harassment rather than lawful regulation.
Many motorists in the State now associate them with fear, extortion, obstruction, intimidation, delay and arbitrary roadside enforcement. Their activities have been particularly notorious around Nwaorieubi before the Army checkpoint, Ogbaku before Road Safety, Port Harcourt Road, Chukwuma Nwoha Road, Okigwe Road, and other strategic routes within the State.
On these roads, motorists are frequently stopped, inspected, delayed, exploited, threatened, fined or otherwise compelled to submit to roadside authority whose legal foundation has remained doubtful.
In December 2025, following the decision in Suit No. FHC/ABJ/CS/1695/2023, which was subsequently affirmed by the Court of Appeal, Abuja, it became necessary to interrogate the legality of VIO roadside operations in Imo State. In that case, the Federal High Court restrained the Directorate of Road Traffic Services and its Vehicle Inspection Officers from stopping motorists, impounding or confiscating vehicles, and imposing fines where no law empowered them to do so. The Court of Appeal later affirmed that decision and dismissed the appeal filed by the VIO for lacking merit.
Following that decision, I issued an open letter in December 2025 to the Attorney General of Imo State, calling on him to advise the State Government and the relevant transport authorities to direct VIO operatives to leave Imo roads and stop conducting vehicle inspections on public roads.
A few days after that open letter, the Imo State Ministry of Transport issued a rejoinder titled: “VEHICLE INSPECTION UNIT, VIO ESTABLISHED BY LAW NO. 14 OF 2011 IS WORKING FOR INTEREST OF IMO PEOPLE.”
In that rejoinder, the Ministry made heavy weather of Law No. 14 of 2011, claiming that the Vehicle Inspection Unit in Imo State was duly established under the said law and that the Abuja decision did not affect Imo State. The rejoinder specifically asserted that the Vehicle Inspection Unit operates under a valid and subsisting legal framework in Imo State.
Because of the weight of that claim, I wrote to the Clerk of the Imo State House of Assembly inquiring of any instrument that the establishes VIO in Imo State. In response, I was referred to the same Imo State Traffic Management Law No. 14 of 2011, and I was given legitimate conditions for obtaining a copy of the law. I complied, paid the statutory fees, and obtained the law on Wednesday 6 May 2026.
Having now carefully studied the law, I can say without hesitation that there is no provision in the Imo State Traffic Management Law No. 14 of 2011 that establishes VIO or any Vehicle Inspection Unit in Imo State.
The law in question is titled Imo State Traffic Management Law, 2011. Its long title states that it is: “A law to establish the Imo State Traffic Management Authority to control and manage traffic and for other connected matters.”
That opening title is already instructive. The law does not say it is a law to establish VIO. It does not say it is a law to establish a Vehicle Inspection Unit. It expressly says it is a law to establish the Imo State Traffic Management Authority.
Moreso, section 3[1] of the law then provides clearly: “There is established a body to be known as the Imo State Traffic Management Authority.”
The body expressly created by the law is Imo State Traffic Management Authority [ISTMA], not VIO.
Section 3[2) clothes that Authority with corporate personality. It gives the Authority power to sue and be sued, hold property, and perform corporate functions necessary for the exercise of its statutory duties. It does not create any Vehicle Inspection Unit.
The next question is whether the Authority, having been established, was given power to create VIO as a unit under it. The answer is still no.
S.4 lists the functions of the Authority as:
a] controlling traffic and enforcing state and national laws that govern the safe use of vehicles on roads in Imo State;
b] reducing the incidence and severity of road traffic accidents;
c] identifying, developing, promoting and maintaining new or alternative methods of traffic accidents;
d] determining and apprehending road traffic offenders;
e] conducting highly visible day and night traffic patrols to enforce traffic rules and regulations and clear the highways of obstruction;
f] provide emergency towing services for broken down vehicles;
g] co-operating with local, national, international bodies, agencies, or group engaged in road safety activities or in the prevention of accidents on the highways;
h] safeguarding vehicles and pedestrians in the construction zones and highways and streets;
i] safeguarding school children through school children crossing and school site zones;
j] safeguarding highways from encroachment from activities of market, roadside trading, street hawking, and arms begging;
k] employing local and random breath testing methods to deter drunk driving
l] maintaining a register of traffic violators
m] doing anything for the purpose of advancing the skills of persons employed by the authority of the efficiency of the equipment of the authority or the manner in which the equipment is operated including the provision of facilities for training, education and research.
None of these provisions expressly creates VIO. None expressly empowers the Authority to establish a Vehicle Inspection Unit. None expressly makes roadside vehicle inspection a statutory function of VIO in Imo State.
The Ministry may ill-advisedly attempt to rely on Section 4(1)(a), which says that the Authority shall discharge functions generally relating to: “controlling traffic and enforcing state and national laws that govern the safe use of vehicles on roads in Imo State.”
But this argument can not stand as an establishment argument. Section 4 is a functional clause. It explains what the already established Authority may do. It is not an establishment clause. It can not be stretched to create a separate body, which the law itself refused to mention.
In other words, the law that creates ISTMA can not be read as also creating VIO by implication, especially when the legislature carefully mentioned the bodies and offices it intended to create.
A careful reading of this law shows that where the legislature intended to create an institution, office or structure, it did so expressly. For example, the law expressly creates:
The Imo State Traffic Management Authority under Section 3[1]; The Advisory Board of the Authority under Section 5[1], with its composition clearly stated; The Chief Executive Officer of the Authority under Section 10[1]; The General Manager of the Authority under Section 10[2]; The Secretary and Legal Adviser to the Authority under Section 10[3]; Mobile Traffic Courts under Section 12[1].
The law also lists the ranks of staff of the Authority under Section 14. Those ranks include Chief Executive Officer, General Manager, Road Traffic Officers, Traffic Assistants and Patrolmen.
Notably, even in that rank structure, there is no mention of VIO, Vehicle Inspection Officer, or Vehicle Inspection Unit.
This is legally significant. The principle of statutory interpretation remains _expressio unius est exclusio alterius,_ meaning that the express mention of one thing implies the exclusion of another thing not mentioned.
Therefore, whereas Section 3 of the Imo State Traffic Management Law expressly establishes the Imo State Traffic Management Authority [ISTMA], and whereas other sections expressly create an Advisory Board, Chief Executive Officer, General Manager, Secretary, Legal Adviser and Mobile Traffic Courts, nobody should casually imply the creation of another body known as VIO when the law did not mention it.
Traffic management is not the same as vehicle inspection. There is a practical and legal distinction between the two.
Traffic management deals largely with the control, regulation and orderliness of road traffic. It concerns obstruction, traffic flow, illegal parking, road use, traffic offences, road safety patrol and related matters.
Vehicle inspection, on the other hand, concerns the technical examination of vehicles for roadworthiness, mechanical fitness, defects, documents and compliance with vehicle standards.
If the Imo State House of Assembly intended to create a Vehicle Inspection Unit and give it powers to conduct roadside inspection, stop vehicles, impound vehicles, seize documents or impose fines, it ought to have said so in clear words.
Such powers affect constitutional rights, including freedom of movement, property rights, fair hearing and the presumption of innocence. They cannot be presumed from vague general language.
The Federal High Court and Court of Appeal decisions in the Abuja VIO case reinforce this point. The court was clear that enforcement bodies must point to a legal foundation for the powers they exercise, especially where those powers involve stopping motorists, seizing vehicles, imposing fines or otherwise interfering with constitutional rights.
The Ministry’s rejoinder is therefore misleading. With profound respect, the Ministry of Transport’s rejoinder that the Vehicle Inspection Officers [VIO], was established by Law No. 14 of 2011 is not supported by the actual text of the law.
The law establishes ISTMA. It does not establish VIO. The law gives ISTMA traffic management functions. It does not expressly give VIO roadside inspection powers.
The law creates certain offices and institutions. VIO is not one of them.
The law creates Mobile Traffic Courts. It does not create roadside VIO courts or empower VIO operatives to become accusers, judges and enforcers at the same time.
It is, therefore, not enough for the Ministry to merely announce that VIO is established by Law No. 14 of 2011. The Ministry must point to the exact section of the law where VIO is created. If no such section exists, then the claim collapses.
I make the following recommendations in light of the above:
1. The Imo State Government should immediately remove VIO from all public roads in the State.
2. VIO operatives should stop all roadside vehicle inspection activities unless and until the State can point to a clear law establishing them and expressly empowering them to operate on public roads.
3. The Government should empower ISTMA, the body actually created by Law No. 14 of 2011, to perform its lawful traffic management functions.
4. If the concern is traffic control, road obstruction, illegal parking, dangerous driving or traffic disorder, the law already establishes ISTMA for that purpose.
5. ISTMA itself must act professionally and within the law.
6. Replacing VIO with ISTMA should not become a transfer of lawlessness from one uniform to another.
7. ISTMA officers must be properly trained, identifiable, disciplined and respectful of motorists’ rights.
8. The Ministry of Transport should publicly clarify the legal status of VIO in Imo State within 7 days of this publication. If there is any other law, regulation, gazette, executive instrument or subsidiary legislation establishing VIO, the Ministry should publish it for public scrutiny.
9. The Imo State House of Assembly should review the State’s traffic management framework. If the State genuinely desires a Vehicle Inspection Unit, it should enact a clear section establishing it, defining its powers, limiting its operations, providing safeguards against abuse, and ensuring that fines or penalties are imposed only through due process, just like Lagos State did in their Traffic Management Law.
Consequently, I call on the Governor of Imo State, the Attorney General of Imo State, the Ministry of Transport, and all relevant agencies to ensure that VIO operatives are removed from all public roads in Imo State within 14 days.
If, after 14 days, VIO operatives continue to stop vehicles, conduct roadside inspections, harass motorists, impound vehicles, impose fines or otherwise operate on Imo roads without clear statutory authority, I shall have no option but to challenge their continued operation before a court of competent jurisdiction.
The issue is no longer speculation. The law has now been obtained. The law has been read. The law does not establish VIO. What Imo State has under Law No. 14 of 2011 is the Imo State Traffic Management Authority, not a roaming Vehicle Inspection Office.
The State Government must, therefore, stop hiding VIO under a law that did not create it.
*Chinedu Agu*
Past Secretary, NBA Owerri | Solicitor & Notary Public | FPD – [Former Political Detainee].
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