Over 400 commercial motorcycles, popularly referred to as Okada, were recently impounded from different parts of the Federal Capital City, for violating traffic rules.
A Joint Task Force team of the FCTA comprising men of the Directorate of Road Traffic Services, DRTS, Nigerian Police, and other security agencies, combed notorious spots in the city centre where okada operators used as their routes for operations.
The team combed Kpaduma II, Asokoro Extension, Galadimawa by Primary School, Gudu market, Kabusa junction and Apo mechanic where the vehicles were seized and submitted for crushing.
Speaking before crushing of the impounded motorcycles at Area 1, the Federal Capital Territory Commissioner of Police, Garba Haruna said the exercise was a sign that the law on okada ban was still enforce.
“FCT residents are aware that motorcycles had been banned from entering the Federal Capital City since 2006, crushing of the okada is to show a signal that the city centre is not an area for them to operate.
“There are designated areas for them to operate, that is the suburbs of FCT, so the recalcitrant type will learn from this exercise. We don’t want to see any motorcycle in the city centre” Haruna said.
On his part, the Director FCT Directorate of Road Traffic Services, DRTS, Abdulateef Bello said the new minister of FCT, Nyesom Wike, has given the Directorate a marching order to ensure commercial motorcyclists and Keke NAPEP operators are taken off Abuja roads.
He explained that despite the fact that the DRTS has been working hard to sustain the ban on okada riders within the Abuja metropolis since it was put in place in 2006, the recalcitrant operators keep returning to the roads.
According to him, the Administration had declared zero tolerance to the illegal activities and would ensure the effort is sustained under the new administration.
FCTA meet experts over building collapse, undeveloped plots
The Department of Development Control, Federal Capital Territory Administration, has met with experts in the building sector to address cases of building collapse, undeveloped plots and abandoned structures.
Addressing journalists after a recent meeting with members of professional bodies, the Director Department of Development Control, Mukhtar Galadima, said the administration was concerned with ending factors that lead to substandard projects.
He said working with professionals outside the department would help strengthen supervision.
Galadima said, “As a responsible organisation we have to be proactive in addressing the cases of building collapse, we have to work with professional bodies that are regulating agencies.
“We are exchanging views on how to stop the menace of building collapse in the Federal Capital Territory.
“The meeting will help us to constitute a committee that will be making suggestions on tackling the issues, even in the past but this time around we are going to expand it.
“We are going to make it a continuous engagements, discussion and supervision. It will help us share responsibility as well as functionality.”
Galadima disclosed that the committee which will soon be constituted will also examine issues surrounding abandoned structures and undeveloped plots and come up with solutions.
Engr Cyril Nwafor, who represented the President Council for the Regulation of Engineering in Nigeria, COREN, urged the National Assembly to implement the recommendations sent to the house since 2010.
He listed the recommendations to include involvement of only registered professionals to handle projects, discipline of those behind failed projects.
Other professional bodies at the meeting were Architect Registration Council of Nigeria, ARCON, the Council of Registered Builders of Nigeria, CORBON, and many others.
