Beggars and prostitutes taken over Abuja - Dino Melaye

The Senate Thursday said that it has mandated the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) Police Commissioner and Commandant, Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps (NSCDC) to flush out beggars, hoodlums and commercial sex workers, from the streets of the FCT.

Chairman, Senate Committee on FCT, Senator Dino Melaye, stated this at a media briefing in Abuja.

According to Melaye, his committee had invited the police commissioner and NSCDC commandant to inform them about the worsening insecurity in the FCT and the need to take steps to curb the trend.

He said, “Last week we summoned the commissioner of police FCT and the commandant of NSCDC because as a committee and the Senate we are appalled with the security situation in Abuja.

“We are also very uncomfortable with the number of hoodlums on the streets of Abuja. We have beggars, destitute, commercial sex workers spread across every nook and cranny of the city and we have given a marching order to the commissioner of police and the commandment of NSCDC to clear them.

“We have also instructed the FCT to provide logistics for the immediate evacuation of all dissidents, beggars including those little boys who claim they are helping you to clean your glass but add aditional dents to your cars.”

The legislator noted that the committee also invited Managing Directors of banks operating in the Federal Capital city and 15 banks attended.

He said, “We discovered that despite the fact that hundreds of millions spent from budgetary provisions of FCT annually paid to contractors for the maintenance of street lights and the maintenance of all the streets and environment of Abuja is not yielding any positive results.

“So, the committee decided to invite these banks and in line with their corporate social responsibility to the FCT, their host community that we are going to share all the major streets in Abuja to banks.

“These banks will now do the maintenance of street lights and be responsible for the environmental sanitation of all the streets, beautification of roundabouts where you have them and by so doing they will also have the logo of their companies or their brands advertised on the street lights.

“This is not a new trend across the globe and we want to believe that this will check wastage and it will also help to block leakages.

“The several millions paid to contractors for the maintenance of street lights and keeping the environment tidy and clean will be saved and this can now go to the development of satellite towns and provisions of infrastructural facilities in the suburbs of Abuja.

“Since we are in recession, we discovered that we must think outside the box. Not only banks even other corporate organisations in Abuja have decided and we have 18 corporate organisations that have accepted to work with us in this regard alongside 15 banks.

“In fact some of the companies that are into land swap business in Abuja have agreed.”