The Inspector General of Police, Mr Tunde Disu, is reportedly considering outlawing fully tinted vehicles in Nigeria, citing that 26 of 27 vehicles used by “One Chance” gangs in the FCT had tinted windows. This reasoning is alarmingly shallow and misguided for a policy with national implications.
Criminals use many tools, but we don't ban them all
Criminals also use mobile phones, motorcycles, cash, bank accounts, face caps and ordinary vehicles. Yet no serious policymaker concludes that these should be prohibited. Public policy must distinguish between correlation and causation. Tinted glass exists for legitimate reasons: it protects occupants from heat and sunlight, provides privacy in a society threatened by opportunistic crime, and shields passengers — women, children, executives, public officials and ordinary citizens — from unnecessary exposure during traffic. Privacy is not evidence of criminality; it is a constitutional value. Homes have curtains, bathrooms have doors and offices have partitions.
The permit regime is a recurring fixation
Tinted glass has become a recurring fixation of successive police administrations. Motorists are repeatedly asked to obtain permits, comply with changing enforcement priorities and navigate shifting administrative expectations. Many comply in good faith only to discover the rules restart whenever leadership changes. The permit itself raises serious questions: what exactly is it certifying? The police cannot determine at application whether a citizen will commit a future crime. Once issued, the owner remains free to use the vehicle lawfully or unlawfully. The permit does not prevent criminal intent, detect criminal conduct or deter determined offenders. At best, it is an administrative record; at worst, a symbolic regulation mistaken for security policy.
Roadside harassment and two-tier enforcement
Tinted permits frequently become grounds for repeated stops, questioning, confrontation and haranguing, leaving law-abiding motorists feeling harassed and treated as presumptive suspects. Security enforcement should inspire confidence, not create perpetual police scrutiny. The state already has lawful powers to stop, question and search vehicles where reasonable suspicion exists. Those powers should be strengthened and professionally exercised, not replaced by broad restrictions on lawful conduct.
Even on empirical grounds, the argument is weak. The FCT contains one of the highest concentrations of government officials, diplomats, business leaders and security personnel in Nigeria — who mostly travel in tinted vehicles. Police commanders and military chiefs use tinted official vehicles. Out of hundreds of thousands of tinted vehicles, selecting 26 criminal cases as justification for a blanket policy is anecdote elevated into regulation. If the logic is accepted, where does it stop? Many crimes are committed in ordinary cars, trucks, vans and buses used in kidnappings and robbery. Yet nobody proposes outlawing them.
Security failures should not justify liberty restrictions
Would the proposed ban exclude the president, governors, top officials, police commanders, diplomats and VIPs, creating two tiers of law enforcement? This is the utter absurdity and contradiction in the IG’s position. One of the recurring errors of authoritarian governance is the belief that freedom obstructs security. History shows the opposite: societies that sacrifice liberty for symbolic controls often end up with less freedom and no meaningful security improvement.
Nigeria’s security challenge is not caused by tinted glass. It is caused by weak intelligence gathering, poor policing capacity, inadequate investigation, corruption within the security architecture, limited deterrence and inconsistent law enforcement. If law enforcement is weak, improve enforcement. If criminals exploit vehicle anonymity, improve intelligence and vehicle tracking. But banning lawful privacy because criminals also value it is neither sound policing nor serious public policy.
I urge the Minister of Police Affairs, civil society organisations and concerned Nigerians to prevail on the IG to shelve this misguided policy, and insist that security measures remain evidence-based, proportionate and consistent with constitutional freedoms. Nigeria deserves effective policing — not performative regulation.
Sola Fasure writes from Osogbo.
