The Minister of the Federal Capital Territory, Nyesom Wike, has imposed a two-week ban on used items markets, commonly referred to as ?Panteka?, within the territory.

The ban takes effect from Tuesday, 14th January 2025.

This decision is aimed at addressing security concerns and regulating these markets more effectively.

Wike announced the ban during the FCT Security Council meeting.

This was disclosed in a post on X by his media aide, Lere Olayinka @OLayinkaLere. He said the minister also placed a ban on the activities of scavengers within Abuja.

At the end of the meeting, this decision was arrived at. Everybody arrested for vandalizing public infrastructure will be charged to court.?

He added that, ?Not only will they be charged to court, they will be charged to court for economic sabotage because we have noticed that whenever we charge them to court, the punishment given to them are so small that we noticed that we have been recycling these criminals.

?Most of the time they get community service where they are flogged, they get 24 strokes of the cane. At times they get fined for 2,000, 5,000 Naira. So we noticed that we have been recycling these criminals.

?The activities of the vandals are enough to kill residents of the Federal Capital Territory because they remove all these manholes and while driving at night you may not know that they have been removed and is capable of causing death. So they will be charged for economic sabotage and even at times, if possible, attempted murder or murder?.

On pantakers, he said, ?At the same time, it has been decided that activities of all Pantekas have been banned for two weeks. They have been banned for two weeks for us to profile them to be able to be sure that only the legitimate operators will be working in Pantekas. So they will be banned for two weeks, in effect from tomorrow, and we are going to profile them.

?At the same time, scavenging has been banned in the Federal Capital Territory, especially in the city centers. Their activities will only be limited to dump sites. Henceforth, the activities of scavengers have been banned within the city center of the Federal Capital Territory and the suburb as well.

He appealed to FCT residence, ?At the same time, we want to talk to the residents of the Federal Capital Territory for them to know that anybody vandalizing public infrastructure is vandalizing our joint property. Numbers have been given out. If you see anything, say something. Let?s join hands to ensure that we protect all government infrastructures?

On one chance criminals, he said, ?Just like you mentioned yourself, a lot has been done to curtail the activities of one chance. For your information, in the criminal code, the penal code, we do not have anything called one chance. All we know is that we have armed robbers because their activities are robbery.

?And a lot of times their activities could be likened to kidnapping as well because all the elements of kidnapping are already there. People are kidnapped and they remand for ransom. So we are treating them as armed robbers, we are treating them as kidnappers.

?Last year, a lot of them were arrested. As I speak with you, about 21 of their vehicles have been recovered. They are still there for you to see. This means that we have succeeded in removing 25 of their operational vehicles from circulation.

?Also, what we noticed was that a lot of them were coming from other states, moving into the Federal Capital Territory every day as if they are coming to do their legitimate work.

?What we noticed more is that almost all the vehicles recovered from these operators of one chance were tinted, fully tinted, making it difficult for their victims to ask for help, making it difficult for passers-by to see that people in those vehicles were in distress,? he said.

Disu assured residents that the security agencies are going to increase it patrol in order to fish out one chance criminals

?Now, what are we going to do about it this year? We are going to embark on the same strategy that we deployed last year that yielded successes for us. We are going to embark on patrol, we are going to use a lot of intelligence and those who have been arrested, we ensure that we charge them to court properly and we give you feedback about it,? he said.

On the recent bomb blast in Bwari, he said, ?I want to assure you that we are doing everything possible to unravel it. The matter is still under investigation. I will come back at the appropriate time to brief you about our findings.? (Daily Sun)