COVID-19: Reps probe police, NSCDC complicity in ‘collapsed’ interstate travel ban

The House of Representatives has mandated its relevant committees to jointly investigate the police and the Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps (NSCDC), over alleged complicity of the two agencies, leading to collapse of the interstate travel ban ordered by the federal government as a measure to control the spread of coronavirus.

While seeking ways to curb the noted lapses, the House in a resolution on a motion sponsored by Minority Leader, Ndudi Elumelu and nine others on Thursday, called for a special task force to be set up to monitor and implement the interstate lockdown

Moving the motion on the need for effective enforcement of the interstate lockdown by security agents, Elumelu said while the restrictions on interstate is supposedly on-going, Nigerians are assailed daily with troubling images and videos of people traveling across the length and breath of different states of the country, which is a clear violation on the presidential order on travel bans.

He said that on several occasions, state government have intercepted trailer loads of people moving in the middle of night and sneaking into other states in this lockdown period, whereas there are supposed to be security agents at states borders implementing the presidential lockdown orders .

According to him, it was a worrisome development that at a time like this when movement is being restricted world wide there are videos of massive movements of travellers mostly smuggled in trucks carrying food items  or livestock from one part of the country to another, this a complete drawback to the COVID-19 containment effort.

He said  there were “serious reports of complicity of security agents who are supposed to be enforcers to the compliance of the orders of mr president on the interstate lockdown.

Concerned that the presidential task force on COVID-19 has raised an alarm over what it described as increased level of interstate movement, worsened by the dubious concealment of people in food carrying vehicles. If not immediately curtailed will further increase the number of COVID-19 cases to an alarming high, that can put the country in a precarious state.

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