COVID-19: FCT tightens rules on restriction order

• releases new guidelines

Authorities at the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) has released new guidelines aim at enforcing strict compliance of the lockdown announced by President Muhammadu Buhari on Monday.

It would be recall that President Buhari had extended the 14 days lockdown by another 14 days in Lagos, Ogun and the FCT in other to curb the spread of the deadly coronavirus.

In a statement signed by the Chief Press Secretary to the Minister of the FCT, Anthony Ogunleye, the FCT COVID-19 Security Committee chaired by the FCT Minister, Malam Muhammad Musa Bello, said while the level of compliance has been satisfactory at the Federal Capital City (FCC) over the first few days of the lockdown, the same cannot be said about the satellite towns located at the various area councils where residents there have largely ignored the lockdown directive.

The statement said residents have used the excuse of going to the markets to flout the lockdown directives and traders selling non-essential food commodities have also used this window to open their shops in clear violation of the directives not to do so.

And in other to ensure that the FCT does not witness an escalation in the number of COVID-19 positive cases, the committee has decided that market operational days are reduced to two days in a week namely Wednesdays and Saturdays only.

Also as part of the measures, residents are now restricted only to their neighborhood markets as movement from one district to the other now constitutes a violation of the lockdown.

The statement also added that Motorcycles (Okada) are henceforth barred from operating anywhere in Kubwa and Dutse Alhaji during the lockdown, noting that mobile courts will now be activated to try all violators of the directive on the cessation of movement across the FCT.