Driving school operators in Kano state have decried low patronage of their businesses by would be drivers, some of who patronize compromised operators.
Speaking in Kano recently, the proprietor of Sayyara Driving School, Kalid Mohammed, said the driving school business is no more profitable in the state.
According to him, “part of our problem is the lack of knowledge from the customers, they don’t know who to go to. In the driving school industry, first of all, we have the driving school where you will come and learn, obtain a certificate, if you have done that, that is just one step, to move on the road, you need a driver’s license, you need to go to the liaison office or the VIO to obtain a test certificate that you have passed, after doing that, you will go to the state internal revenue, where you will pay for the driver’s licence and for your information to be captured; the bio data.
“But unfortunately, what we have now is that most of the clients, particularly what we are talking about is that those that can drive, they will ignore the driving school, they will move directly to the licence office”.
He also lamented that many quacks have infiltrated the industry. “It is a place where there are a lot of quacks there, there will charge you and tell you that they will produce the driving school certificate, they have those among the driving schools that are accomplice, they will give them peanuts and the driving schools will help them process the certificate.
“And the end of it all, you will find out that we are producing quack drivers, not really tested, because they have not gone through the regiments of the driving school, its only that they have narrated that they can drive and the quacks simply accepts, they process the driver license and the end of it all, we are here not doing anything.
“So this is the major problem we have, it is not peculiar problem to Kano state. I can say it is throughout the country, the clients should be enlightened enough to know the first point of call is the driving school”.