By Muhammad Tanimu, Abuja
As the taskteam continues with its clampdown on illegal motor parks and garages in Abuja, officials of the FCT Directorate of Road Traffic Services otherwise known as Vehicle Inspection Office (VIO) in collaboration with FCTA Command and Control Taskteam on city Sanitation yesterday raided and confiscated automobiles from some notorious hotspots within the nation’s capital city centre.
No fewer than forty-one (41) motorcycles, twenty-two (22) vehicles and fourteen (14) tricycles were impounded during the exercise that last for six hours.
Some of the areas raided include: Area 3 junction, Apo roundabout, Guzape junction near former SARS headquarters and AYA Roundabout and AA Rano,
Old CBN Junction in Garki, the bridge at Apo Legislative, Gudu market Junction, Galadimawa roundabout and Main Entrance of Games Village respectively.
Head of FCT DTRS Taskteam, Adamu Shehu Maiwada led the officials drawn from Abuja Environmental Protection Board (AEPB), various traffic management and security agencies during the exercise.
Explaining the exercise, Head of public relations and enlightenment, DTRS, Mr. Kalu Emetu said it was continuation of efforts to ensure free flow of traffic on Abuja roads.
Emetu added that the hotspots were raided, to rid them of all the activities that obstruct traffic on roads in the city, saying that the confiscation of the tricycles and vehicles are to deter others from engaging in such menace.
“What the Directorate of Road Traffic Services (DRTS) did again today is to remind residents that there are designated places that they need to park their vehicles, and places they need to load or pick passengers in the city.
“These are people who broke the law. And the law is always there to guide, but some people find it difficult to believe the enforcement officers, because they feel that they are being meant to do what they don’t intend to do, but societies are not managed like that.
“You are not expected to form an illegal motor park, and feel that it’s your private business, but there is law in place. And when you don’t enforce the law is as good as there is no law.
“Everywhere is not supposed to serve as motor parks. Abuja is a planned city, and when you don’t use a particular plot for what it’s meant to be, it becomes a problem, so you create problems for everybody living in the city,” he stressed.
The enforcement team also raised and cleared makeshift shops and shanties inside an illegal market, along corridors of residential areas, behind Saint’s Mary and Alfred School, Adjacent Main Entrance Gate of Games Village, in Kaura District.
It was observed that affected traders were allowed to evacuate their wares from the place, before enforcement team dismantled and cleared the debris of the structures there.