Bomb rumour in Nyanya Motor Park falsified, says Concessionire

The concessionaire of popular Nyanya Motor Park, Alhaji Baba Lagode, has described the recent bomb rumour at his controlled motor park as inhuman, fallacy and an evil plot by major general Niengi-led ministerial task force with the aim to run down his business this festive season as passengers journey to different destinations.

Baba Lagode in an interview with The Abuja Times said that his business in the recent times has recorded zero income as the security agencies deployed to Nyanya have withdrawn their services to his park on his failure to pay kickbacks to them.

According to Alhaji Baba Lagode during the telephone interview, the early morning false alarm by the taskforce that led to a temporary closure of the park was just one in a million humiliation he has recorded in the hands of the so-called protecting security agencies who have fallen out with him.

While describing the scenario that led to the closure on the 12th of this month, he said that the joint taskforce as well as the military deployed in Nyanya jointly drove everybody out of his business premises on the account that there was a bomb at the park as at 6.30 am, which is the peak of activities of passengers moving to one destination or the other.

This however he further said halted activities as people with the trauma of bomb attack at the park scampered from one point to the other to escape from the venue as such activities was brought to a zero point.

He said: “My brother, my life is in danger as soldiers have always told me to leave the business and disappear from the environment. I have petitioned the authority concerned but issue remains the same.

You see, how can I give up to fifty thousand naira to the taskforce? On the daily basis, the police asks for money also even when they perform no jobs to me.

As am talking to you, there is a security threat at the park due to apprehension, since the false alarm by the task force whose job is to decongest the Nyanya Jikwoyi road perform security job at the park illegally”.

While calling on the FCT administration to intervene on the matter, Alhaji Baba Lagode said that his office had held several meetings on the way forward with the newly appointed Mandate Secretary to the FCT Transport Secretariat, Comrade Kayode Opeifa, yet it has yielded nothing.

He, however, suggested that the contracts he entered with the authority preferably should be cancelled since the administration aids the proliferation of other illegal parks at Nyanya thereby increasing security concerns and low patronage to his business.

He also pointed out that the move is breach of contract he had with the FCT administration.

“You see, my brother, I would move for the cancellation of this contract because part of the contract was that my park should represent commercial motor parks as a means of sanitising Nyanya which was infested with Boko Haram in the past.

It was stipulated that there shall be security apparatus placed to checkmate certain suspicious moves which is threat to life. And all things being equal, I am to pay certain percentage to the FCTA that is if the agreement is honoured to the later but as it is,

there are hundreds of motor parks in Nyanya now with the standing contract and you can see it is something that I cannot continue,” he added.

Baba Lagode, noted passengers are no longer concentrated to his registered park since the administration now allows other illegal parks to operate as against the deed signed.

He said that adequate security is no longer guaranteed since all the illegal parks operate manually with no technological apparatus to detect bomb except at the park operated by him.

Other reasons he adduced was the expiration of two weeks ultimatum given to the illegal parks operators by the authority with no positive change.

He said that with the way things are going that he can no longer subscribe for an extension of the date till after Christmas which the illegal park operators has requested again.

“An illegal thing is an illegal thing and I smell rat. The FCT administration gave me licence to operate and now there are illegal parks all over the place conducting passengers to various destinations and the same administration says nothing. I bet you till tomorrow they will do nothing,” he lamented.

While pondering on the bomb alarm raised by the taskforce, Baba Lagode stated that in as much as the security agencies at Nyanya have remained uncoordinated and antagonistic about his business that the false alarm was to stop his business at the peak of business and also to scare people away from patronising him.

“They suddenly closed down the park but opened it as at eleven o’clock after the peak time with no information of discovered bomb or anything till this moment

and I have waited for any of them to approach me with certain information on security report at the park managed by me but nothing has come from anybody. It was an attempt to smear my business this Charistmas season.

And one other thing is that we have always called on the security agencies to screen passengers boarding vehicles or trooping in the park but they failed to do that on daily basis.

So there is danger inherent at the park because passengers are no longer being screened. So in the first place, they have failed to perform their own duties assigned to them because we failed to grease their palms,” he maitained.

Idu Jude, Abuja