Violate lockdown order and go to jail, FCT Minister warns Abuja residents
Muhammed Bello, the Minister of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) has warned residents of Abuja that they risk going to jail if they continued violating existing lockdown laws put in place to check the spread of the coronavirus disease.
The Minister who disclosed this in a statement issued by Anthony Ogunleye, his Press Secretary, said Abuja residents were using the excuse of going to the markets to flout the lockdown directives and traders selling non-essential food commodities have also used this window to open their shops in clear violation of the directives not to do so.
The Minister said this discovery was made after a review by the security committee of the effects and level of compliance of the cessation of movement in the FCT as part of measures to contain the spread of COVID 19.
According to the Minister, The FCT has been quite fortunate to have maintained a relatively stable number of COVID- 19 positive cases. He said the FCT Administration is making efforts to ensure that there is no escalation in the number of positive cases returned from the Territory.
He noted that while the level of compliance had been satisfactory at the Federal Capital City (FCC) over the first few days of the lockdown, the same could not be said about the satellite towns located at the various area councils where, according to him, residents have largely ignored the lockdown directive. He added that in the last few days even the situation in the FCC had deteriorated.
The Minister said despite the directives that residents should patronize neighborhood shops and markets within their districts and not move from one district to the other to buy their essential items in order to minimize movement of people and vehicles across the city, this has largely been flouted as well.
He noted that in order to ensure that the FCT does not witness an escalation in the number of COVID-19 positive cases and, to prevent a public health emergency, the FCT Administration had to take a few steps to enforce the cessation of movement and ensure its compliance by residents of the FCT.
According to the Minister, the new measures include:
a. Reducing market days to two from the previous three days. Under the new arrangement, markets will be operational only on Wednesday and Saturdays as against the previous days of Monday, Wednesday, and Saturday.
b. Restricting residents to patronizing only neighborhood markets as movement from one district to the other would henceforth constitute a violation of the lockdown and
c. Banning motorcycles from operating anywhere in Kubwa and Dutse Alhaji during the lockdown.
The Minister said mobile courts would be activated to try violators of the directive on the cessation of movement across the FCT.
He added that the FCTA will step up sensitization efforts especially in the rural communities and enjoined Area Council, Chairmen, traditional rulers, and community leaders to actively engage in sensitizing the populace on the dangers of the COVID -19 pandemic.
