Insecurity: FCTA Crushes 639 Impounded Motorcycles 

Olawale Ajimotokan in Abuja 

The Federal Capital Territory Administration (FCTA) has crushed 639 impounded commercial motorcycles, popularly called okada.

The Director, FCTA’s Directorate of Road Traffic Services, Dr Abdulateef Bello, while addressing reporters Thursday, said the  motorcycles were impounded and crushed for breach of the law barring them from operating along restricted areas in the nation’s capital.

He alleged that Okada operators mostly used the motorcycles to commit one-chance operations, snatch bags and mobile phones, as well as peddle drugs and other heinous crimes in the FCT.

“The crushing is in continuation of our usual exercise for the removal of commercial motorcycles that still operate within the city in line with the ban that has been established since 2006 by the Federal Capital Territory Administration.

“We have had this exercise in series and I am sure by now is no more news that we will continue to impound commercial motorcycles that continue to ply in the Federal Capital City,” Bello said.

He added that the crushing of the motorcycles would serve as a deterrent to those who still didn’t believe that there was a ban on their activities in the FCT.

Bello lamented that the menace of the motorcycles has grown beyond causing gridlock as they now constitute security threat to the lives and property of residents of the FCT.

In his remarks, the FCT Commissioner of Police, Haruna Garba, described the exercise as one of the strategies to flush out criminals in the city.

Garba, who was represented by Mode Magawata, an Assistant Commissioner of Police, Operations, said the locations where the motorcycles were apprehended were in the metropolitan area.

He said the development did not speak well of the seat of power.

“There is no how we can fold our hands and allow criminality to take over the Federal Capital Territory. All have been provided for us, we must enforce the ban,” he said.

This was corroborated by the Deputy Commander, Critical National Assets and Infrastructure, Hussain Pama.

He said most of the scavengers that were arrested were aided into the city from the suburbs by the okada operators.

“The okada will bring them, then they will  hide and operate in the night. Without okada how will they come in the city midnight?

“Motorcyclists are the main people promoting crime in the city,” he said.