By Bassey Bassey
SIR: In recent times, Abuja has been in the news due to the increasing numbers of abductions that has taken place within the city centre, satellite towns and villages. While these abductions are not entirely new to some original inhabitants who live in villages in Abuja, residents in the satellite towns and Abuja city centre have for a long-time lived-in denial or oblivious of the abductions.
The insecurity has reached heightened stage and is fast assuming a cancerous form that requires urgent chemotherapy for it to be flushed out completely, so citizens and residents can feel secure to go about their lawful businesses.
To effectively improve insecurity, contact with citizens is key. With a strong citizen-government relationship, neighbourhoods, shopping malls, communities can be encouraged through a government-led public private partnership (PPP) subsidy program (that makes light the cost burden) install a centrally managed neighbourhood surveillance centre where closed circuit television cameras (CCTV) are installed at strategic positions to stimulate community surveillance and policing.
As at today, the population of Abuja is speculative, based on estimations and projections. A model city like Abuja should have a database of all city residents (those coming in and moving out) that they can track and follow-up on. These data provide an avalanche of opportunities for planning and the deployment of scarce resources to meet city resident needs and for security purposes.
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Public transportation in Abuja is majorly private sector driven with majority of the players being private individuals. With an effective public transport system dedicated city buses can be equipped with installed surveillance cameras, trained and verified bus drivers who are known and traceable can contribute to reduce the incidence of one chance that operate in the obscurity of poor regulation. Existing public transport fleet business operators should register all their drivers and or update their records to reflect current reality. The policy or unwritten policy that restricts designate registered public taxi operators from accessing certain places such as airports, malls, government offices etc should be abolished as this is also contributing to why residents board unregistered taxis because they can easily move in and out any choice location.
An effective urban governance will contribute to city safeguarding, removing the burden of policing from the shoulders of the state security outfits and sharing it across to all residents who will excitedly contribute towards measures that will reduce the prevalence of insecurity around their neighborhood and city.