The FCT Minister, Malam Muhammad Musa Bello has called on the Nigerian Security and Civil Defense Corp to go beyond arresting vandals to identifying and bringing their sponsors to justice as a way of substantially stamping out the menace within the territory.
He was speaking when he received the management team of the NSCDC led by its Commandant General, Ahmed Abubakar Audi who was making his first visit to the FCTA since his appointment to the position.
Malam Bello expressed concern over the spate of vandalisation of critical national assets in the FCT, including telecommunication ducts, manhole covers, street lights, solar panels at traffic intersections and some facilities at the Abuja light rail project.
He called on the NSCDC to work in conjunction with other security agencies to not only arrest the vandals but also their sponsors. In the words of the Minister, “it is a sophisticated and complicated value chain. So far the arrest of the vandals have been at the lowest level, the street urchins”.
“But I think it is very important now that your operations and investigations really need to identify the real culprits and beneficiaries. Where are the vandalized items sold? Where is the economic value chain? Because the amount of damage is enormous. It affects us all as a people because needed resources are recycled and recycled just to replace vandalized equipment”.
Stressing the importance of the NSCDC to the security architecture of the Territory, the Minister said that the Corps along with the police and the DSS formed the tripod on which security in the FCT was anchored and expressed hope that this will continue under the new Commandant General.