NBA Challenges Police Tinted Glass Permit in Federal Court

NBA Sues IGP Over Tinted Glass Permit Policy

NBA institutes public interest suit challenging Nigeria Police tinted glass permit, citing military-era law, extortion reports and private payments outside the TSA.

Atlantic Post

September 5, 2025

4–6 minutes

Constitutional Law, NBA, Nigeria Police, public interest litigation, SPIDEL, tinted glass permit

The Nigerian Bar Association has moved from protest to process. In a decisive escalation the association through its Section on Public Interest and Development Law has filed Suit No FHC/ABJ/CS/182/2025 at the Federal High Court, Abuja, to challenge the legality of the Nigeria Police Force tinted glass permit policy introduced earlier this year.

The litigation names the Inspector General of Police as defendant and is being led by SPIDEL officers including Prof Paul Ananaba SAN and Olukunle Ogheneovo Edun SAN.

At stake are fundamental civil liberties. The NBA argues that the police measure infringes constitutionally guaranteed rights to dignity, privacy, freedom of movement and property.

Those claims are not rhetorical. The association points to repeated reports that officers on checkpoint duties have used the policy to stop, harass and in some cases extort motorists even before the policy’s official enforcement date.

Those allegations have fuelled public alarm and helped drive the decision to test the policy in court.

The legal centrepiece of the challenge is the Motor Vehicles (Prohibition Of Tinted Glass) Act of 1991. That military era decree prohibits tinted or darkened motor vehicle glass unless authorised but, the NBA contends, it cannot sustain modern constitutional scrutiny.

The association notes that Section 45 of the 1999 Constitution permits limitation of rights only if a law is reasonably justifiable in a democratic society.

A careful reading of the 1991 Act and its provenance, the NBA says, shows it was born of an era hostile to civil liberties and lacks the procedural and substantive safeguards now required. The statutory text does not provide for the annual renewals and fee regime the police have imposed.

Transparency and public finance are twin concerns. The police launched a digital portal to process applications and payments at possap.gov.ng yet the NBA has flagged that payments are being routed to a private account listed as PARKWAY PROJECTS Account No 4001017918 rather than to the Treasury Single Account or the Central Bank.

That arrangement raises immediate questions about revenue ownership, procurement governance and the risk of private profit from what should be a public security policy. The association has asked the court not only to quash the policy but to require the disclosure of contracts, vendor agreements and accounts.

History shows this is not a new flashpoint. Successive police leaderships have at various times required permits or issued guidelines on tinted glass as a security measure. Critics for years have called these schemes disguised revenue drives.

Commentators have described the most recent roll out as tantamount to another user fee layered over motorists already burdened by taxes and levies. The premium time for conversation on this issue is whether security ends where rights begin and who profits when enforcement meets payment.

On the constitutional question the NBA stresses procedure as much as principle. Even if the 1991 law remains on the statute book the police cannot expand its practical reach by administrative fiat to create ongoing renewal obligations or charge fees without statutory authorisation. That is a canonical separation of powers problem. Courts routinely void administrative acts that lack enabling legislation or that effectively amend a statute by executive action. The NBA’s litigation will ask the Federal High Court to apply those doctrines and to insist that any measure interfering with liberty must rest on clear parliamentary authorisation.

There is also a security argument to confront. The police say tinted glass can conceal criminals and therefore the measure is necessary. That argument resonates in a country with serious insecurity. But necessity is not a blank cheque. Proportionality requires that the least rights invasive means be used, that enforcement be non arbitrary and that revenue from enforcement be properly accounted for. The police digital portal may be modern. But a modern portal cannot sanitise an otherwise opaque procurement and payment chain.

What happens next matters. If the court grants interlocutory relief the enforcement timetable will be stalled and the police may be restrained from further collecting fees. If the court finds the policy unlawful the ruling could force a formal legislative response — either to repeal or to bring the 1991 Act into conformity with constitutional standards or to enact a new law that properly governs permits, fees and transparency. In short the matter will push Nigeria’s public law institutions to reconcile security with accountability.

For now the immediate victory for the NBA is procedural. The association has moved the dispute into a court of law where public interest arguments can be tested under oath and where evidence about the portal, the vendor and the account can be compelled. For citizens the suit is a bet on institutions — that a court will curb executive overreach and insist on public finance rules. For the police it is a test of whether an operational idea born in the barracks can survive in the courtroom of a democratic state.

Expect this case to be argued with technical legal force and political heat. The NBA has signalled it will not only press the constitutional case but pursue full disclosure. The police will plead security and administrative discretion. The Federal High Court will have the final say and its judgment may set a precedent for how far security policy can reach into daily liberties in Nigeria.