The FCT Administration on Monday raised the alarm over safety concerns and poor sanitation in Utako Market, threatening to shut it down to avert the epidemic.
Utako Market is said to be one of the largest markets located in Utako district, within Abuja’s city centre, and is being managed by the Abuja Municipal Area Council (AMAC).
The Director, Department of Development Control, Mukhtar Galadima, who is also the leader of the taskforce, said the discovery about the deteriorated sanitation situation in Utako Market was disturbing.
Galadima said the market had become a “time bomb and disaster waiting to happen”.
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He stated that there was an urgent need to clean up the market and ensure that disaster and epidemic were averted.
Galadima expressed displeasure that such a market located within the heart of the city could be allowed by its managers to degenerate to a place where both human and environmental safety was compromised.
While he said that an urgent meeting would be convened with all stakeholders in the market, he insisted that proactive measures must be taken.
He noted that more worrisome was the fact that the market managers had illegally allowed the market to overflow into the major streets around Utako residential areas.
According to him, the taskforce would not allow the traders to occupy the streets again, because they had started vandalising and defacing the road infrastructure.
Also speaking, the Secretary of FCTA’s Command and Control, Peter Olumuji, said apart from the nuisances in the area, residents around the neighbourhood had also complained of security threats from the market.
Olumuji equally disclosed that the market had been overtaken by idle youths and suspected hard drug addicts.
While he said that no suspect was arrested, he noted that the National Drug Laws Enforcement Agency (NDLEA) had been briefed to pay close attention to the market area, with the aim of curbing the illicit drug peddling activities.
