Insecurity: Wike vows to shut down illegal motor parks
The Federal Capital Territory Administration (FCTA) vowed to close unlawful motor parks throughout the territory on Thursday in response to the recent wave of security incidents in the nation’s capital.
The Minister of the FCT, Nyesom Wike, made this known during a chat with journalists in his office while reacting to the activities of ‘one-chance’ robbers in the capital city.
According to reports, the area has seen an increase in “one-chance” robberies, kidnappings, and other criminal activity.
Some locals are afraid because of the security situation since criminals pose as commercial vehicle operators and rob or kidnap unsuspecting victims are still at large.
Speaking about the actions made thus far to address the security issue, the minister stated that last week a collaborative task group on transnational crimes was established to combat the threat of “one-chance” robberies.
“We’re getting a lot of reports about kidnappings here, about one-chance there,” Wike said.
“In most cases, we don’t even let the public know what has been done. I can tell you the security agencies have done quite a lot. If not, by now, the FCT would have been a different thing.
“One of the areas we identified is that the FCT is at the centre – we have Niger State, we have Kogi State, we have Nasarawa State, we have Kaduna State. And if you check these four states, these four states are states that experience banditry and kidnapping from time to time.
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“And we discovered that most of the areas that they (criminals) stay are shanties and uncompleted buildings, and that is why we say we cannot allow these uncompleted buildings where criminals have made their place of abode.
“Bring down all these uncompleted buildings which have turned to shanties and they will have nowhere to hide.”
“Just last week, we set up a task force on those states that we have borders with and one-chance. Joint security task forces including the SSS, the police, the army, the navy, and have identified the way they will operate.
“To tell you that we are concerned. That is why we have to set up this joint task force for one-chance and border control.
“Again, you see a lot of illegal motor parks. When we come up with a policy that we can’t allow these illegal motor parks, people will come up to say the economy is hard, things are tough but nobody wants to look at it from the security implication.
“We are also planning to shut down some of these illegal motor parks.”
