Worried by the increasing rate of vandalism and removal of manhole covers across the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) Abuja, the leadership of the Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps (NSCDC) has vowed to put an outright end to the criminal activities of vandals.
To this effect, the corps commandant-general, Dr Abubakar Ahmed Audi has ordered the immediate deployment of the Corps’ tactical team to end the menace.
A statement by the Corps director of public relations, DCC Olusola Odumosu, quoted Dr Audi to have made the commitment during a visit to the minister of the Federal Capital Territory, Mallam Muhammad Musa Bello, adding that he expressed concern about the disturbing criminal trend of destruction of public infrastructure in the city, especially manhole covers.
The civil defence boss who promised to deploy a very robust security strategy to stop manhole theft lamented that the criminal activities even occur on the presidential routes.
He, however, assured the minister of the Corps resolve to increase surveillance on manholes in the Federal Capital Territory and the deployment of its tactical team for public infrastructure protection.
“We are in charge of protecting critical national assets and infrastructure and manholes are considered as part of such infrastructure, we are going to deploy accordingly”, the CG said.
Audi also commended the FCT Command of the Corps for its recent arrest of some scavengers popular called “Baba Mbola” caught removing manhole covers and vandalising other public utilities in the FCT.
He charged the command to step up efforts by deploying a robust team that will be going round to give protection to manholes which have become death traps in some parts of the city.
“We are going to liaise and work closely with the Director of security and SSA on security to identify vulnerable areas so that we can deploy our team of specialised intelligence officers who have just returned from training to give us information”, CG said.
On his part, the minister of FCT, Muhammad Musa Bello congratulated the CG and by extension, the entire management team, officers and men of NSCDC for the well-deserved national honour and special recognition by President Muhammadu Buhari.
He said, “Let me first of all congratulate you, your management and the entire officers and men of the Corps for the well-deserved honour by President Muhammadu Buhari.
“Since your appointment, we have seen how you have repositioned the Corps and how you are making a lot of efforts along all facets to improve the service, I pray that God continues to grant you success.”
He said because of the scale and size of the FCT the NSCDC needs additional support and the deployment of tactical team is very important.
