Hi all,

A colleague of mine was narration how he was stopped over the weekend during his travel along Warri, Port-Harcourt route. His offence was that there was no engine number written anywhere on his papers. Long story short he parted with 5k and had to swear an affidavit before he was allowed to go from their station.

Now my issue with this is that these engine numbers that the police always ask for do they even know what it is? What is their reason for asking for it? how will they even know if it is stolen given that they are the exact same number on similar car make, type and engine size.

The so called "engine number" is actually a series number (that is the same for all vehicle of a particular year n type) that is denotes the engine type for that car. Say for an example Toyota and Lexus uses various engines for their various car depending on year, number of cylinder, type of camshaft and engine capacity.

So a 2007 2.4 Naturally aspirated DOHC 4 Cylinder engine Camry will have the same engine number as any other Camry in that series. So what is the point of the police checking engine numbers? how in the name of all that is good will they know that an engine is stolen? Majority of them sef cant differentiate an injector from a spark plug. and they want to lecture you on the need to put your engine numbers on your papers. can they tell the difference if your engine is 1MZ instead of 3MZ? do they even know what these stand for?

Ideally the people that should be concerned about engine size are the revenue people i.e custom and motor licensing people.

My personal experience with them was, last year i was traveling to Port Harcourt and i was stopped, they asked for all the "askable" when the guy sees i was adamant about not "seeing him" he asked for my engine number? I told him am not a mechanic and i dont know anything about the engine or engine number. my own i just to enter car and drive anything other than that my mechanic handle it, and if he knows where the engine number is he can check for himself. The guy just looked at me and i equally looked straight faced back at him. I was anticipating him saying something silly like "i should get my mechanic to find it before i move" or so, as i already had my response to that ready. but he just hissed and threw my paper back at me.

So finally if you dont have your "engine number" on your papers please do so to avoid those silly types that like to fool themselves on the road.

If you don't have the engine number or there's a mistake, a sworn affidavit is cheaper than settling in the station.

It is your duty to ensure all your paperwork and is up to date and correctly reflects on the vehicle in question before hitting the roads. Note you only have to do this once a year.