Lagos threatens to confiscate buildings used as hideouts by criminals



The Lagos State Government on Tuesday warned that any building used as hideouts by kidnappers, vandals and other criminal elements in any part of the State would henceforth be confiscated and taken over by government.

The State Government, while vowing that it would henceforth scale up enforcement of restriction of commercial motorcycles, popularly called Okada, on certain routes and ban on street trading, said security agencies have been placed on red alert and that there shall no longer be any hiding place for criminal elements in any part of the State.

Rising from the monthly State Security Council Meeting chaired by Governor Akinwunmi Ambode, the government said it had resolved to henceforth embark on massive and aggressive confiscation of properties used as hideouts by criminal elements in the State.

The State's Commissioner of Police, Mr Fatai Owoseni, who briefed journalists at the end of the meeting alongside heads of all security agencies in the State, said the decision of government followed recent security threats in the State, and the need to take strong and decisive action to address the situation.

According to Owoseni:
"The take away for today after the Security Council Meeting is for us to look at all the strategies that we have been employing in tackling the security challenges that we had in the State and to further strategise with the view to sustaining those measures that would p