Minister of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Muhammad Bello, has expressed concerns over the growing cases of kidnapping, banditry and other violent crimes in the nation’s capital.
To this end, the minister summoned an emergency security meeting with the heads of the various security agencies and charged them to work in synergy to mitigate criminal activities in the territory.
Speaking at the end of the meeting, the FCT Police Commissioner (CP), Babaji Sunday said the police command had already put in place measures to combat crime in the FCT.
“We were summoned, all the security heads in the FCT for an emergency meeting where we deliberated a lot on the spate of kidnapping and banditry at the suburbs of the FCT…and we’re going to improve on our synergy and further strategise on what we have discussed. We have assured the house that they will see changes”, he said.
The CP also spoke on the need for the residents of the FCT to provide actionable intelligence to security agencies in their battle against criminality.
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“You know we cannot be everywhere and like the popular saying, security is everybody’s business. We expect the residents to always be security conscious, give us actionable intelligence which we will act upon,” he said.
The police chief also called on the residents to form neighbourhood watch within estates and local communities to minimise the activities of criminals in those locations, saying that actions from such neighbourhood watch made up of credible members of the community will assist greatly in slowing down the actions of criminals.
He also advised commuters to go to recognised motor parks within the city to board vehicles, warning that boarding unregistered commercial vehicles exposes them to dangers.
The senior special assistant to the FCT minister on security, Salihu Mohammed said that the Directorate of Road Traffic Services (DRTS) was also working to clamp down on unregistered commercial vehicles used for the crime of “one chance”.
