The Abia State Government, ABSG, has announced the modification of the cattle market in Lokpanta, Umunneochi LGA, into a daily non-residential market in an effort to enhance security along the Lokpanta-Umunneochi-Uturu axis of the state.
During a press briefing in Umuahia on Monday evening, the Security Adviser to the governor, Navy Commander MacDonald Uba, revealed that the government also demolished 160 brothel rooms in the market suspected of harboring kidnappers and other criminals.
Uba clarified that allegations of the government asking non-local traders to leave Lokpanta are false, emphasizing that there is no such directive in place.
According to him, “Unfortunately, we see rumour mills making the rounds that Abia State Government has asked the Hausa community to leave Lokpanta. This is untrue.
Lokpanta-Umunnochi-Uturu axis has been surrounded for over a year, even before this administration came in. Government has taken steps to contain the outbreak of kidnapping in that area”.
Kidnappers, he said, have been operating from that place, stating, “Unfortunately market dealers did not carry themselves very well and they allowed kidnappers to use the area as where ransom is paid.”
According to him, the traders extended the market into the median lane of the Okigwe-Enugu expressway “as tactics of monitoring (commercial) buses.”
“They use one of their buses to block the road, cause traffic grid, and allow the passage of a lone bus, and they will send information to others to rob the bus. We dismantled the supposed market in the (expressway) median”.
Three weeks ago, he said, “We carried out a deliberate, measured action there, and brothels numbering over 160 rooms were brought down, arrests were made and millions of naira were recovered.”
