The Federal Capital Territory, FCT Ministerial Task Team on Thursday came under gun attack from hoodlums during a clearance operation along the Nnamdi Azikiwe Airport road corridor.
The operation which was meant to enforce the ban on commercial motorcyclists, popularly known as “okada”, saw the team impounding over 100 motorbikes.
Their offences include driving against traffic, driving on the express way among others.
As the raid was on along the car wash area in Lugbe some of the riders mobilized themselves and started shooting at the joint task team and also attacked them with other dangerous weapons.
Items recovered by the taskteam included one locally made gun, pistol, cutlasses and a dagger.
Senior Special Assistant on Monitoring, Inspection and Enforcement to the Minister of FCT, Attah Ikharo who spoke on the incident said; “We came for removal of okada on the airport corridor. The Minister of FCT, Malam Muhammad Bello, has given a marching order that okada should be removed because they are not allowed to ply the main road but most times we find them heavily driving against traffic on the express way, contravening traffic rules, we find them behaving unruly, we find them hurting people here so we came to remove them on the airport road”.
On how many okadas were impounded, he said, “There was massive impounding of okadas, we impounded over 100”.
Condemning the attack on the security officials, he said, “For us, attack is a regular thing for us, we are used to being attacked. We have been attacked severally.
“Before the joint taskforce came on board the security men have always been under attack by these okada riders, it is a regular thing here”.
Adamu Shehu, Head of Directorate of Road Traffic Services, DRTS in the taskteam urged the motorcycle riders to stop violation of traffic rules.
“My message is that they should stop driving against the traffic because when we see them we are going to seize their okada.
“All the okada impounded today, we will go through the court process and we are going to crush them”.
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