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Residents of Abuja the nation’s capital are currently at the mercy of street urchins and hoodlums who invade fuel stations to attack motorists as petrol scarcity persists in the past one month.
Our correspondent gathered that the situation has forced motorists in desperate search for fuel to sleep in fuel queues.
When our correspondent visited the popular Ahmadu Bello near Banex junction Abuja, a scary long fuel queues persisted as residents resort to walking to their destinations due to unavailability of vehicles.
At one of the filling stations in the area, hoodlums were said to have in the wee hours of Wednesday launched an attack, wielding different types of dangerous weapons as they dispossessed motorists their belongings.
On further enquiries, one of the victims who simply gave his name as Friday wondered why the queues have persisted, indicting the federal government for what he called insensitivity on the plight of the masses.
He said the skyrocketing crime rate will continue as the long queues remain in the streets of Abuja.
Friday, a commercial driver fingered petrol hawkers popularly known as black marketers for the upsurge on crime rate. He alleged that some of them masquerade as petrol hawkers in the daytime while in the night they resort to crime.
He wants the government to look into their activities which according to him is economic sabotage.
“I am surprised that these guys have continued to make brisk businesses on the misery of the masses. They sell petrol as a highly exorbitant prices, going for as much as N1,000 per litre. How would people survive?
“I don’t have any doubt that some of them are also the perpetrators of the criminal activities innocent motorists and residents trekking home are witnessing at nights. As innocent as they may appear in daytime, they are the same people going to fuel stations to dispossess motorists and residents of their belongings. Their activities must be monitored if not, we will be in for bigger troubles” he said.
A resident of Dutse, an outskirt of the nation’s capital who gave her name as Chidimma John noted that she trekked from the popular Nicon junction to Jahi before she could see a vehicle going towards her axis on Tuesday.
The mother of one also said robbery has increased in the streets of Abuja where he said street urchins and criminals have resorted to taking advantage of the tense situation in the FCT to attack those walking home.
There were reports that a young man whose identity could not be ascertained as at the moment of this report was shot by yet-to-be-identified hoodlums while he was walking home on Monday at Kubwa junction roundabout due to lack of vehicle and valuables dispossessed from him.
As at 6pm on Wednesday, commuters were seen standing in large numbers at various bus stops in the FCT without vehicles in sight to convey them home.
Also not lost is the high price which they pay to get to their destinations as a result of the scarcity of fuel which has forced in increment in price of the commodity.
When contacted for a comment on the increasing crime rate in the FCT, spokesperson of the command, DSP Adah Josephine could not be reached for a comment.
