The Federal Capital Territory Administration is combing through tunnels, canals and subways across the territory to smoke out pick pockets and other criminal elements constituting security threats to road users.
The exercise which kicked off on Monday, saw members of the FCT City Sanitation Taskteam transversing subways, water channels and green areas stretching from the Women Affairs Ministry connecting to the tunnels beside the Court of Appeal through to the Millennium Park and out at the swamp between the National Mosque and the Yar’Adua Center.
The team comprising men of the Nigerian Police, the Civil Defence Corps, NDLEA, Immigration Service, and other sister agencies also raided the notorious bridge beside the Wuse market, through Wuse 2 where lots of informal businesses were taking place, side by side with people of questionable characters living under the facilities.
Coordinator of the Taskforce, Mukhtar Galadima, who led the operation, said the operation had become necessary following complaints from residents in the city alleging the misuse and abuse of such facilities.
Galadima, who doubles as the Director, FCT Department of Development Control, described the sanitary condition within and around the affected facilities as very disturbing, which calls for drastic measures to mitigate.
In his words, “The honourable FCT Minister directed that we should take necessary action, and today we are a fact-finding mission, to know what is really happening under the bridges and subways. From today, we can come out with our plan of action on the next step to be taken.
“With what we have seen today, it is really unfortunate that these things are happening in the city, where informal activities are taken place under the bridges and subways, as well as people of questionable characters are living there. We met some under 10 years kids under one the bridges.
“Considering the issues of security and looking at the these people residing under the bridges, it is of great concern to the FCT Administration, and we will not lay it low as we have to take it up immediately.
“We have to step up our action on combing and monitoring these facilities and activities taken place there.”
On his part, the Secretary, Command and Control Centre, of the FCT Security Services Department, Dr. Peter Olumuji, lamented that the areas raided were hotspots where residents were robbed frequently.
According to him, pedestrians and other road users transversing the area have had their valuables forcefully taken from them, as criminal elements come out from the bushes to snatch phone and bags even from cars.
He said, “Immediately they do this, they run into the bridges to hibernate. That is why we have decided to come and profile the canals and bridges within the capital cities, and what we have seen is so disturbing.
“We have all the security agencies represented here in this operation. We have the Nigerian Police, Civil Defense, the DSS, the NDLEA, Immigration, so what we will do now is to commence effective clamp down on these criminal elements under the bridges.
On number of arrest made, Olumuji said: “We made three arrest under the bridges today and these arrests concerns more of drug related issues, and we have handed them over to the NDLEA for further investigation and profiling.”
