From Fred Itua, Abuja
The Federal Capital Territory (FCTA), on Monday, warned residents against patronising cabs from unauthorised taxi ranks in the nation’s capital.
The warning followed the recent public outcry against the upsurge of criminal activities, using commercial vehicles.
Addressing newsmen after a clean-up exercise in Abuja, Director, Department of Road Transport Service (DRTS), Abdulatef Bello, said plans were underway to bring lasting solutions to the insecurity challenges faced by road users.
“One chance is a criminal activity, you know, and for sure, you know, people are taking advantage of the fact that we have transportation issues. You know, we don’t have an effective mass transportation service on ground for now. So people are taking advantage of that, because like I said, this business is a product of demand and supply. People are out to move from one place to the other, and they need vehicle to do that.
“So, people are taking advantage of that, but the transportation Secretariat at the moment has come up with a programme to ensure that our public transportation issues are fixed.
“Any moment from now, you’ll be seeing new buses or new arrangements for taxis that will run our commuter services. But in the time being, we have identified some critical areas that are red flag areas,” he said.
He said the perpetrators of ‘One Chance’ operate from vulnerable areas which he listed to include; AYA junction, and some parts of the Central Area where there is no transportation outlet
“We have arrested like, four or five number of them with dangerous weapons, their vehicles are here and we are going to hand them over to the police and then like I said, we will not continue, we will not rest on ours, we will continue to chase them until we fix our transportation issues, and then make Abuja safe for everybody to stay.
“It is important for me to mention this, you know, we have about 46 legal taxi ranks in the in the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), and some are very visible in the federal Capital City (FCC), and we have advised people to patronise some of these recognised taxi ranks but people always try to avoid those taxi ranks for obvious reasons, maybe because of costs.
“You will always see people walking away to the extreme or lonely areas to pick taxi and those ones are the people that are actually vulnerable to this one chance menace,” he added.
During the operation to clean the city of illegal operators of commercial vehicles, the FCT combined Security Taskforce impounded sixty nine commercial vehicles in different locations in the City Center.
Bello noted that the vehicles impounded committed various offences ranging from wrong parking, ricketier vehicles, non plate number used as one chance operators among others.
Bello noted that the Administration will not rest in it’s effort to ensure the city is clean from nuisance adding that the sixty nine vehicles arrested will be prosecuted by FCT mobile Court sitting in the premises of the Directorate of Road Traffic Service, DRTS.
He said that three commercial vehicle operators suspected to be part of “One Chance” syndicate were arrested and will be handed over to the police for prosecution.
Director FCT Department of Development Control Muktar Galadima who described indiscipline as a major contributor to the high rate of criminalities.
He said that the administration will continue to sensitize road users on the need to use only the authorised taxi ranks provided by FCT Administration in the city centre.