THISDAY

FCTA Set to Establish Police Posts in All Government-owned Food Stores

-

Minister of State, Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Dr. Mariya Mahmoud, has rebuked the suspected hoodlums who looted a warehouse in Gwagwa-Tasha on Sunday, saying their action was a sheer criminal act that was not in anyway motivated by hunger.

She said this yesterday at the end of an assessment visit to Gwagwa-Tasha to ascertain the level of damage to the warehouse where the palliative­s for the six area councils were stored.

She also vowed that going forward, the FCT administra­tion will now establish police posts in all government-owned warehouses to protect them from looters.

The minister decried the brazen stealing of all the grains and other food stuffs, including the roofs and fence of the storage facility.

She expressed outrage at the attitude of the youths within area, assuring that the administra­tion would now establish a police post in all government warehouses across the territory to deter the recurrence of such act.

"We are here due to the unfortunat­e incident that happened early hours of yesterday, (Sunday) where hoodlums attacked this very warehouse and packed everything that was here, including the fence.

"Not only the food items that were here, including the roofing, windows, and even the gates of this place and offices were all attacked. You can see the level of damage. There is nothing that is left here, including machinerie­s that are used for the processing of these things.

"As you have heard, people around, the youth of the environmen­t or the community are suspected to have instigated this incident. So, this is a very sad event. And we are not happy about it," Mahmoud said.

She also vowed that the administra­tion would prosecute those behind the ugly incident, noting that the unfortunat­e incident occurred when the administra­tion was restocking its warehouse with a view to meeting up with the directive of President Bola Tinubu to distribute palliative­s to all the six area councils in FCT.

She said: "We did distributi­on about twice. And then about to do the third one, where these trucks were here to offload these food items, and then they were attacked, they even injured some people on duty.

Newspapers in English

Newspapers from Nigeria