In a bid to tackle nuisance and infringements on critical roads infrastructure across the FCT, the Directorate of Road Traffic Services, DRTS, said it would be embarking on weekly raid on defaulting motorists in Abuja.
Officials of the Service supported by a joint team of security and para-military agencies, on Friday, clamped down on motorists operating in illegal motor parks and pedestrian walk ways within and around Utako, Jabi, and Life Camp junction, resulting in the confiscation of dozens of vehicles.
Some of the vehicles confiscated include those caught parked on the pedestrian walk way and undesignated parking places as well as rickety vehicles.
Assistant Director, operations at DRTS, Mrs. Osho Deborah, who led the exercise, said it is a weekly operation, with the support of the FCT Command and Control, in order to rid the city of all the infractions.
“We are on a general operation to rid the city of unroadworthy, rickety vehicles and those parking on the walk ways and operating illegal parks.
“We want motorists that would help ensure that the city is rid of nuisance, but most of their vehicles are not roadworthy, and we have been sensitising them (drivers)”, she explained.
Head, Public Relations Division, DRTS, Kalu Emetu, disclosed that in less than two hours, they were able raid and impound 34 rickety vehicles within a section of the city centre.
Emetu decried that despite all the efforts the Directorate is making to keep Abuja clean and rid the city of all rickety vehicles, many motorists are still operating without numbers, side mirrors, appropriate windscreen and emitting thick smoke into the atmosphere.
“We will continue to remove such vehicles, as it is the mandate of the Directorate to ensure that vehicles on the road are those that can move to its destination without causing nuisances in the city”, he stressed.
For Senior Special Assistant to the FCT Minister on Monitoring, Inspection and Enforcement, Ikharo Attah, the DRTS operation was apt, as it will help rid the city of every act contravening the city’s transport master plan, as designed by its founding fathers.
