The Concourse
By Soney Antai, serial awards-winning c columnist
Eureka! NASS has found it!
At last, our Nigeria can breathe again. Smoothly. The National Assembly has found the silver bullet! For decades, Nigerians have waited anxiously for the magic solution to the country’s roiling troubles — insecurity, corruption, unemployment, poverty, poor electricity, failing infrastructure, escalating terrorism, banditry, kidnapping, inflation, and you name it.
And now, Eureka! The Nigerian Senate has found it: ban preaching in commercial buses.
Yes, you read that correctly.
According to our distinguished legislators, one of the greatest threats to public safety and national serenity is that a preacher may board a commercial bus and ask passengers to repent – quite unlike the way their brothers and freedom fighters do – before the journey ends. Once that dangerous activity is stopped, Nigeria’s roads will apparently become safer, our drivers more focused, our passengers more peaceful and, perhaps, our terrorists sufficiently impressed to abandon their AK-47s.
What a discovery!
The Senate’s concurrence with the Federal Road Safety Corps Act (Amendment) Bill, 2026, which originated in the House of Representatives, is, therefore, a momentous event, and we didn’t realise it early enough. What? How could we not see this all along? Well, better belated than never
Indeed, critics of the National Assembly should be ashamed of themselves. They have spent years accusing our legislators of being distracted from the real problems confronting the country. How wrong they were!
The legislators were merely looking in the wrong direction; initially. The solution was hiding in commercial buses. And what do these critics know about governance anyway? They should take tutorials from Sheikh Ahmad Gumi and Sheikh Yahaya Jingir. Surely, these are the sort of intellectual resources available to a nation blessed with such an abundance of wisdom.
For years, NASS has been busy amending the military-dictatorship-sired 1999 Constitution foisted on Nigeria. Whenever necessary, provisions are discarded, modified or tweaked. Acts of Parliament, or better put, Acts of the National Assembly, receive similar treatment. Thus, currency of the expression: 1999 Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria (as amended). Perhaps, in time, we may also have the Federal Road Safety Corps Act (as amended, amended and amended again) — until someone eventually discovers another amendment that will solve another national crisis.
On 1st July, 2026, the Federal Road Safety Corps Act (Amendment) Bill, 2026 (HBs. 1401 & 1604 — For Concurrence) was read at the Senate for the first time. Barely three weeks later, on 17th July, the Senate passed it. It is now awaiting presidential assent.
We can only hope that those troublesome fellows who insist on seeing religious motives and undertones everywhere will not accuse President Bola Tinubu of anything if he assents to the bill. Some have already started arguing that the President is effectively compelled to assent to it because of the generally misunderstood Muslim-Muslim presidential ticket, which angers Sheikh Yahaya Jingir to no end.
Naturally, this argument brings Sheikh Yahaya Jingir into the picture; but nobody should confuse him with Yahya Sinwar of Palestine. Nigeria has enough problems without importing another Yahya into the conversation. But let us be serious for a moment. The Senate says the provision is not aimed at Christians, but intended to reduce distractions in commercial vehicles and enhance the safety of commuters. Fair enough. But if preaching is such a dangerous distraction, one wonders what the legislators think of the other things that happen in commercial buses: loud music, quarrelling passengers, political arguments, phone calls conducted at maximum volume, incessant phone alerts, conductors hanging precariously from moving vehicles and shouting bus stops to prospective passengers? What about drivers negotiating potholes as though trying to escape from a chasing tiger? Yet, apparently, the commercial bus preacher is the real menace.
Under the amended Second Schedule of the Act, hawking, trading or preaching inside commercial vehicles is an offence, punishable upon conviction by a fine of N50,000.
The provision has understandably angered sections of the Christian community. The Pentecostal Fellowship of Nigeria, through its National President, Bishop Wale Oke, has even vowed that Christians will defy the provision if President Tinubu assents to it.
Hmm. Such audacity!
But perhaps the 10th Senate should not be blamed. It has merely discovered a solid solution problem that had apparently escaped the notice of successive governments. For decades, Nigeria has battled terrorism, banditry and kidnapping. We have thrown soldiers, police officers, money, technology and emergency measures at these problems. Nobody thought of banning preaching in buses. Now we know why we have been losing the war. The terrorists were probably waiting for the preachers to stop distracting commercial bus drivers. Once the bill becomes law, the nation can expect miracles:
Kidnappers will surrender.
Bandits will repent. Terrorists will drop their weapons. Oil thieves will return stolen crude.
Corrupt officials will confess.
And our roads — those magnificent ribbons of asphalt that regularly test the suspension systems, patience and financial capacity of motorists — will suddenly become safe.
Perhaps the National Assembly should immediately begin work on a second phase. If banning preaching in buses makes roads safer, why stop there? Ban loud political arguments in buses.
Ban passengers from discussing government policy. Ban complaints about bad roads. Ban conversations about fuel prices.
Ban passengers from criticising legislators. Indeed, to ensure absolute serenity, perhaps silence itself should become compulsory. That way, every commercial bus can become a moving monastery.
No preaching.
No arguing.
No talking.
Just absolute peace!
And since the Senate says the prohibition is not new, critics should perhaps calm down. The provision, it says, has been in the law since 2007 and is also covered by Regulation 220 of the National Road Traffic Regulations, 2012. Wonderful; the laws of the Medes and Persia. You don’t change a winning team. Forget about your Super Falcons!
So the problem has apparently been staring us in the face for nearly two decades. And all this time, Nigeria has been looking for solutions to insecurity, unemployment and poor governance when the answer was sitting quietly in our statute books.
What a country!
The same law reportedly provides for a N100,000 fine for disobeying traffic lights, road signs and road markings. Now, that is interesting. We eagerly await the day when the law is applied with equal enthusiasm to the convoys of powerful government officials and other privileged road users who treat traffic regulations as optional suggestions. Imagine the spectacle: a governor’s convoy stopping obediently at a red light; a minister’s convoy waiting patiently behind ordinary motorists; a police vehicle respecting road markings; a military vehicle not driving against traffic. That would be a greater national miracle than the silencing of a preacher in a commercial bus.
And there is another delightful possibility. With commercial buses now made peaceful, perhaps our distinguished legislators will begin travelling in them more frequently. That way, they would be closer to the people they love so much. What a democratic breakthrough that would be! And we are waiting, hoping.
