Abuja market shut indefinitely over motorbike accident, riot

Minister of the Federal Capital Territory, Mohammad Bello, has ordered the indefinite closure of Dei-Dei Market in Abuja, following a riot.

He gave the order after inspecting the scene of the Wednesday incident with FCT Commissioner of Police, Sunday Babaji, and other senior security officers.

Some residents had said there was an accident involving a motorcycle around the market in the area that resulted in the chaos.

During the riot, some persons were seen with machetes. There were unconfirmed reports of some deaths while shops were razed; vehicles and motorcycles destroyed.

The minister directed the community and the market leaders to fish out the hoodlums responsible for the crisis.

“The community and market leaders must fish out hoodlums and bad eggs among them, unfortunately this time around hoodlums carry arms and they shot innocent people,” NAN quoted him as saying.

He also said, “As a matter of fact, I saw four corpses this is very sad and totally unequivocally unacceptable in Abuja.

“We have agreed with security agencies that full scale investigations will be done, and the communities have to be part and parcel of the solution or else there will be no peace.

“In the interim the timber market and the surrounding markets, including all the activities on road that have clustered the road and made it impassable will all stop until the technical team reviews everything, and then we will take the next decision.”

Bello said there was no tribal or religious misunderstanding because all the leadership of various communities have lived in peace for many years.

“This is simply the matter of criminals and hoodlums taking the laws into their hands,” he said.

The FCT police in a statement said it had restored normalcy in Dei-dei town.