Minister orders police to dismantle road barricades in Abuja

Minister of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Musa Bello, on Thursday, ordered the Nigeria Police  to remove the remaining road barricades around some of its formations in the FCT.

He said the police has no reason to retain the barricades since security situation has tremendously improved, while other sister agencies had already dismantled theirs.

The minister gave the order when the new Assistant Inspector-General of Police, Zone 7, AIG Mohammed Fagge visited him.

He said since other members of the security community in the territory had since taken measures to remove or reduce their road barricades, the Nigeria Police should do the needful to further improve vehicular movement.

Bello urged the Police and other security agencies in the territory to take the knotty issue of traffic indiscipline more seriously, and urged the Police high command to direct the Divisional Police Officers (DPOs) to as a matter of priority stop the activities of commercial motorcyclists and scavengers in their areas of jurisdictions.

He argued that the responsibility should not be left to the task force alone,  being the primary responsibility of the Police to fight crime in whatever form.

Bello also directed the security agents to closely monitor activities in uncompleted buildings.

While asking the Police to encourage community policing in the territory, the minister noted that monitoring of uncompleted buildings would go a long way to assisting in  nipping in the bud any criminal activity at its embryo stage.

Malam Bello called for deployment of more Police personnel in the territory to ensure  Abuja was better policed.

“One of my greatest concerns in running the city and the territory is traffic indiscipline by motorists, the use of motorcycles (Okada) within the city and the use of the tricycle popularly called Keke Napep in unapproved areas

“My appeal to you  is to direct all your DPOs, since every area  is under somebody, direct them that motorcycles and keke Napep are not allowed within so and so areas of Abuja. We also have these scavengers. They are not allowed by our laws

“More people move into the Federal Capital Territory on a daily basis and some hardly go back, therefore, we need more Police personnel to man the city.

“I want to use this medium to thank the Police  most sincerely for the support that we have always enjoyed. There is no doubt that policing in the FCT is something that is very important by virtue of Abuja being the seat of government of the federation, and where we host the President and the diplomatic community,” he stated.