NTA, tinted glass and powerful lights.
This is another issue that I saw live. I watched as it unfolded and I remember exactly what happened.
Tinted car windows became very popular in the mid-1980s. All kinds of people had heavily tinted glasses. I am not referring to the kind of tinted glasses that we have today, I mean car glasses that were so dark that you could not see the people inside the car, even if you placed your eyes right beside the glass.
All kinds of people used tinted glasses. I told you about a presidential bodyguard that was my friend. He drove various types of Peugeot 504 cars and almost all of them had tinted glasses. I also told you about a guy that was the son of one of the wealthiest people in Nigeria at the time. He drove a red Peugeot 505 Evolution and it also had tinted glasses.
All kinds of government officials, security officials and wealthy private individuals used tinted glass vehicles in the 1980s.
Then the NTA did a special report on the 9 o’clock news sometime in 1989 or 1990. The report highlighted the dangers of tinted glasses. They said that some were so dark that they impaired the vision of the drivers. More importantly, they said that criminals could use tinted glasses to evade detection. They showed footage of various cars with tinted glasses on the streets of Lagos.
The next day a statement came from government and it banned everybody from using tinted glasses. The only exceptions were the president (General Babangida) and the chief of general staff (Admiral Aikhomu).
Interestingly, Babangida and Aikhomu had used tinted glass vehicles in the mid-1980s (1987, 1988), but that stopped sometime around 1988. They had used regular Peugeot 504s when they used tinted glasses, but Babangida began using the W100 Mercedes limousine in 1988 and it didn’t have tinted glasses. The Peugeot 505 limousine and W124 limousines that he used from 1989 to 1993 also did not have tinted glasses.
The order was formalised in 1991 when a decree was issued. It is that decree that the police is enforcing today.
The NTA went one step further and I was really interested in seeing what would happen.
The NTA did a special report about blinding lights.
You see, many senior government officials and senior military officials lived in Ikoyi in the 1980s. It became common that you would see very powerful security lights at the gates of the houses of these officials. These lights were incredibly powerful.
The NTA said that these lights were a danger to motorists. They could easily blind motorists and cause car crashes.
One of the reasons that I wanted to see what the government would do was because the Presidency was also guilty.
I have driven towards State House Ribadu Road as late as 7:20 in the morning in the 1980s and you could not see the gate at all because of the blinding lights that were there.
And just as I thought, nothing was done about it.
