By Stanley Onyekwere
Worried by the increasing nuisances and infringements on critical transport infrastructure especially the roads and pedestrian walk ways in Abuja, the Directorate of Road Traffic Services (DRTS), of the Federal Capital Territory Administration, has kicked off intensive clampdown on culprits, in order to mitigate the menace.
In particular, DRTS officials supported by a joint team of security and para-military agencies, yesterday dislodged motorists operating in illegal motor parks and pedestrian walk way, and impounded no fewer than vehicles during the exercise that lasted about one and thirty minutes.
It was observed that most of the vehicles confiscated include those caught parked on the pedestrian walk way and undesignated parking places as well as rickety and unroadworthy vehicles.
Leading the exercise, Assistant Director, operations at DRTS, Mrs. Osho Deborah, explained that it’s a weekly operation, with the support of the FCT Command and Control, in order to rid the city of all the menace.
She said: “ We are on a general operation to rid the city of unroadworthy, rickety vehicles and those parking on the walk ways and operating illegal parks.
“We want a motoring public that would help ensure that the city is rid of nuisance, but most of their vehicles are not roadworthy, and we have been sensitising them (drivers)”.
Similarly, Head, Public Relations Division, DRTS, Kalu Emetu, disclosed that in less than two hours, they were able raid and impound 34 rickey vehicles within a section of the city centre.
Emetu decried that despite all the efforts the Directorate is making to keep Abuja clean and rid the city of all rickety vehicles, many motorists are still operating without numbers, side mirrors, appropriate windscreen and emitting thick smoke into the atmosphere.
“We will continue to remove such vehicles, as it is the mandate of the Directorate to ensure that vehicles on the road are those that can move to its destination without causing nuisances in the city”, he stressed.
On his part, Senior Special Assistant to the FCT Minister on Monitoring, Inspection and Enforcement, Ikharo Attah, while describing the DRTS operation as apt, will help rid the city of all acts, which are in contravention to the nation’s capital city transport master plan as designed by its founding fathers.
What we are doing will help save the city. What’s why the Director of DRTS, Dr. Abdulrateef Bello and his team, decided to come out this morning, and with the support of the every other security outfits and the backing of the FCT Minister, Malam Muhammad Musa Bello .
According to him, “The city run as a chain- both the transportation system, environmental system , security system, structural system, educational system, and amongst others. So everything runs as a chain, heavily connected together as one.
“All together, solving crime and ensuring the best of the city, everything is connected as one. When any illegal motor park is developed, the hawkers, beggars, car wash operators and others would come in there to operate”.
To sustain the effort, he said continuous enforcement is the only way to stop contravention to the transportation master plan, urban and regional planning Act, Abuja Environmental Act, as “the more we sustain our presence, doing what we are mandated and paid to do, going forward, Abuja will be a clean place for everyone of us.
Not left out, Mr. Olumuji Peter, Secretary, FCT Command and Control, noted that the government dislodge and clamp down on the defaulters, it is able to achieve good security for the city.
He said: “What we are doing is to ensure that we are able to dislodge illegal motor parks that have brought increment in vehicular crime otherwise known as one-chance.
“In every urban city, good transportation improves the economy, but when you have people infringing on the transportation policy of a particular environment, it starts to bring about security threats to those residing in the place”.
