Security Concerns: Shops In Cyprian Ekwensi Complex To Close @ 7.30

By: Shaka Sunday

To ensure high level security for lives and property in and around the Cyprian Ekwensi Centre for Arts & Culture, Area 10, Garki District, Abuja, all businesses and shops are to now close by 7.30pm daily.

Accordingly, the official closing time for business and shop
owners operating within the premises of the Cyprian Ekwensi Centre for Arts & Culture, Area 10, Garki, Abuja, is 7.30pm beginning from Thursday 2rd November, 2023.

Secretary, FCT Social Development Secretariat, Ibrahim Aminu Masari, gave this directive during an emergency meeting with business operators and shop owners within the premises in his office, Wednesday.

Masari, who cited security concerns as one of the major reasons the Management took that proactive decision, said that the government will no longer condone a
situation whereby Non-staff and tenants to the Secretariat will stay back after normal
closing/official hours to the extent of staying back far into the night.

His words: “Sometimes people remain till about 9:00pm at
times which is unacceptable”.

He expressed dismay at what he saw when he paid an unscheduled visit to the Secretariat
on Sunday the 29th of October 2023, at about 7:10pm with a view to ascertain some of the information at his disposal, and discovered that a lot of activities goes on in the Secretariat at that odd hours.

According to him, “to my dismay, I discovered over 500 persons within the complex at such late hours enjoying
themselves to drinks and indiscriminate smoking not knowing what the event or activity
was all about as there was no official communication whatsoever to that effect”.

“After waiting patiently till about 08:30pm and there seem to be no signs of the people leaving soon, invited some of the private security guards on duty who accompanied me to disperse
the gathering,” he added.

While internal mechanism to sanction the business owner who encouraged such
lawlessness and disregard to the extant rules of the civil service which forbids the sale of
alcohol or other intoxicating substances, the new directives takes immediate effect and
members of the public who transact businesses after 7:30pm will have themselves to
blame if caught flouting this directive as our private security guards have been duly
advised accordingly, he warned.

“Change does not occur through magic or miracles, it can only be achieved through
resilience, focus and determination, especially when the aim for such change is to portray the FCT Administration in a positive light while taking into consideration the
security of lives as well as government properties-this is our position”, Masari stressed.