The Federal Capital Territory Administration (FCTA) has threatened to shut down illegal motor parks operating in the capital city of Abuja over rising ‘One Chance’ robberies.
The Minister of the FCT, Nyesom Wike, made this known on Thursday during a chat with journalists in his office in Abuja.
“We’re getting a lot of reports about kidnappings here, about one-chance there,” Wike said.
“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) from time to time, banditry, kidnapping.
“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.”
Wike said that the FCTA has set up a joint task force on cross-border crimes to tackle the security menace called one-chance robbery.
He also blamed the rising crime in the capital city on illegal motor parks and uncompleted buildings used as dens by criminals.
“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 implications.”
The minister said that the FCTA is also planning to shut down some of the illegal motor parks in the city.
One of the most recent victims of the ‘one-chance’ robbery in Abuja is Greatness Olorunfemi, a community developer and member of the Young African Leaders Initiative Network (YALI).
Olorunfemi was reportedly pushed out of a fast-moving vehicle along the Maitama-Kubwa highway by criminals who had reportedly robbed her. She later died at the Maitama General Hospital where she was allegedly denied treatment for not providing a police report.
