[UPDATED] FCT minister reveals root cause of Dei Dei crisis

FCT Minister, Malam Muhammad Musa Bello has revealed the root cause of the riot that broke out in Dei Dei building material market on Wednesday.

Bello said the crisis was not motivated by ethnicity or religion but was the action of criminal elements who started the violence in order to carry out their criminal intentions.

The minister made this known when he visited the market in the evening following the incident earlier in the day, to ascertain for himself the cause and extent of the violence which claimed four lives and resulted in the razing of shops and vehicles within the market.

Accompanied by the Chairman of Abuja Municipal Area Council, Mr Abdullahi Adamu Candido, FCT Commissioner of Police Mr Sunday Babaji and other top security and senior officials of the FCTA, the Minister met with the various market and community leaders and took an assessment tour of damage in the market.

Speaking passionately after the tour, the Minister said “After an emergency security meeting with the relevant security agencies including the Commissioner of Police and the Director of the DSS and senior management officials of the FCT, we decided to come here.

“And we came here specifically because on the social media, all kinds of stories are being circulated saying there is an inter-ethnic crisis in Abuja with one tribe fighting against the other. I have come here and met the leadership of the market, I have met the leadership of the communities and met the political leadership as represented by the Chairman and vice chairman of Abuja Municipal Area Council, and what really came out very clearly was that this was an accident that occurred when a lady on a commercial motorcycle fell off and a vehicle ran over her and unfortunately, she passed on.

“As a result of this incident tension rose and hoodlums took over and like they do everywhere in the world, their target is economic assets and they burnt down a substantial part of the timber market and other markets around here and they burnt many vehicles.

“There was no communal clash here and I appeal to all residents of Abuja to continue to live here as we have always lived in peace as the center of unity.

The Minister called on the community leaders to work at fishing out the bag eggs within their folds and help in bringing them to justice. He said “What I told the community leaders is that they have to fish out the hoodlums and the bad eggs amongst them. This is because this time around, hoodlums carried arms and they shot innocent people. This is very sad and totally, unequivocally, unacceptable in Abuja.

“It is simply a matter of criminals and hoodlums taking the law into their hands and I implore every community in the FCT to ensure that community leaders identify miscreants, drug pushers, drug dens and drinking joints where crime and criminality takes place. The police and the military cannot be everywhere at the same time.