"PROSTITUTES HAVE TAKEN OVER MY COMMUNITY" - UTAKO COMMUNITY LEADER LAMENTS

FCT Minister Mohammed Musa Bello

The leader of Utako Community, Abuja, Alhaji Abdullahi Isha, has cried out to the police over the influx of sex hawkers into the community.

He lamented that the presence of the prostitutes had also attracted men of shady characters to the community.

Isah, who said this during the Federal Capital Territory Eminent Persons Forum organised by the police on Tuesday in Abuja, called on the FCT Commissioner of Police, Muhammad Mustafa, to come to the rescue of his community.

The chief expressed displeasure over the activities of the sex hawkers and pleaded with the police authorities to deploy personnel to the community to arrest the development and restore sanity to the area.

He said, “I want to call the attention of the Commissioner of Police to the activities of prostitutes who have taken over my community. Their population in the community has increased in recent times and they are also attracting criminal elements. We want the police to come and address the situation before things get out of hand.”

A participant at the forum, who is a retired commissioner of police, Lawrence Alobi, called on the FCT residents to support the police financially, noting that the Force was not getting enough funding for its operations.

He argued that the police would perform better, if provided with the necessary equipment and logistics.

He admonished the residents to emulate Lagos State, which he said empowered the police with vehicles, helicopters and other equipment to enable them to perform their responsibilities more effectively.

“Let us all support the police financially, even with N100 every month. You can’t send a child to fetch water with empty hands,” he stated.

Presenting what he described as his scorecard, Mustafa said the FCT Police Command had arrested 408 suspects, prosecuted 247 and secured the conviction of 216 between August and October, 2016.

He also explained that his men recovered from suspects, 42 firearms, 250 ammunition, 27 bags of cannabis, 72 vehicles, 44 motorcycles, and over N3M cash.

The CP said, “Having identified through intelligence that ‘one chance’ robbers have designated certain spots they use as shrines to dispossess their victims, the command has launched a campaign to destroy the shrines and a lot of shrines have so far been destroyed. The operation will be sustained,” Mustafa said.