Abandoned Buildings, Terrorists’ Hideouts

MUCH has been made about the
discovery of improvised
explosive devices, bombs, and
guns in an abandoned Lagos
building belonging to the
Bayelsa State Government that
the impression could be created
that the ownership of the
building was more important
that the import of the discovery.
Terrorists and other criminals
find comfort in abandoned
buildings. We had so warned in
an editorial earlier in the year
about the waste and illegal uses
of abandoned buildings, many of
them belonging to
governments.
Abandoned buildings pose a
combination of risks. Their use
for criminal activities is only one
of them. There are hundreds of
thousands of uncompleted or
abandoned buildings in Lagos
and our other towns and cities,
some on the verge of collapsing.
They belong to federal, state,
local governments, corporations,
or individuals.
In the case of governments, the
buildings form part of a bigger
national malaise of unplanned
projects, their poor funding, and
supervision. At the individual
level, ambitious developers who
run out of funds, die, or are
otherwise incapacitated also
account for abandoned
buildings.
If construction stops, within
days, the building is stealthily
occupied, first at nights, and
later, it becomes a rooming
house for all kinds of characters.
Illegal immigrants, vandals,
vagrants and criminal elements
find abandoned buildings useful
as bases for their nefarious
activities.
They are hardly challenged.
Abandoned buildings also
accommodate illegal immigrants
who pour into our country
assured of free accommodation.
Many unemployed people, who
have lost means to secure
housing, use these buildings.
What is certain is that crimes are
never far from those
surroundings.
The search for criminal hideouts
should include vehicles, many of
which their owners abandon for
years and nobody cares how
others use them. Criminals
would remain unrelenting in
inventing new ways of
protecting their activities.
Legislations and effective
planning regulations could be
helpful in dealing with
abandoned buildings. The
statutes should be enforceable.
Given our current security
conundrum, there should be an
all-out effort to ensure that
uncompleted buildings are
properly policed to avoid their
being used as criminal hideouts.
The recent arrest of nine
suspected terrorists, including a
Chadian, in the Ijora Badia area
of Lagos metropolis, in the
Bayelsa abandoned building –
they had lived there for years –
again shows the security
challenges abandoned building
pose.
Security agencies should remain
ahead of criminals. For now, the
best efforts of the security
agencies are still behind the
criminals’. Security agencies
therefore need more intelligence
to uncover the tracks of the
criminals.
It would be more effective to
block supplies of arms to
criminals than discovering
where they hide their arms. All
these call for a more intensified
approach to the war against
terror.

www.vanguardngr.com/2013/04/abandoned-buildings-terrorists-hideouts/?utm_source=&utm_medium=twitter

Most times you will find such people in Abandone market stalls that are too expensive to rent. Abandone building that the owner has ranout of fund. Abandon building that folkes or siblings planted juju to make the owner of the house forget it.