Safety menace: FCTA taskforce clears shanties, recovers harmful weapons, impounds 20 autos

The Federal Capital Territory Administration, FCTA, has recovered dangerous weapons from suspected criminals and impounded about 20 vehicles in Wuse Zone 3, Abuja, during clearance operations by its task force.

Men of the FCTA taskforce, led by the Director of the Department of Development Control, Muktar Galadima, braved heavy downpours in the early hours of Wednesday, August 6, 2025, and stormed an identified hotspot in Wuse Zone 3.

Galadima, speaking to journalists before and after the exercise, said the area had posed a formidable threat to security due to the increasing number of shanties and other illegal activities.

According to him, the exercise followed a directive from the FCT Minister on Tuesday for the multi-sectoral ministerial task force to redouble efforts in ridding the nation’s capital of all criminal elements, including shanties and illegal structures.

He said: “We have been able to identify a location that somehow poses a lot of challenge to the city’s security and then a city’s aesthetic quality and we have been able to clear the menace and even to chase away people of questionable character.

“Moreover, this place has been designated for another use. It’s not supposed to accommodate them. They were occupying illegally.

“In the plan of Abuja, where we are standing now is a proposed road corridor that has been designated as the Inner Northern Expressway just like what we have as Goodluck-Ebele Jonathan Expressway,” he explained.

He disclosed that there would be a mop-up exercise in the area on Thursday and advised property owners to take advantage of the clean-up to develop their land in line with the directive of the FCT Minister, Barrister Nyesom Wike, who had instructed owners to develop their property or risk revocation.

The Director of the Department of Security Services, Adamu Gwary, explained that intelligence reports indicated the location had been serving as a hideout for criminals.

Represented by Dr Peter Olumuji, he displayed some of the dangerous weapons recovered from the area, saying: “If you look at some of these machetes I am holding here, these are the weapons most of these criminal elements who hibernate in this particular axis, normally used to attack unsuspecting passers-by and motoring public.

“From here, they can go towards the National Mosque bridge and they can also access the Zone 1 bridge. So most of those complaints from the public or passers-by of being attacked are done by these miscreants in this area.

“When they attack, they do not only collect their valuables, they also go ahead to machete them with these machetes. Evidences abound in the various police posts around here,” he stated.

On her part, the Head of Operations, Directorate of Road Traffic Service, DRTS, popularly known as the VIO, Deborah Osho, revealed that about 20 vehicles were impounded.

Osho stated that some of the impounded vehicles were discovered to have been used for “one-chance” operations, adding that the vehicles would be properly documented and their owners would have to pay heavy fines before retrieving them.