TOYIN ADEBAYO, ABUJA
The FCT Ministerial taskforce on the enforcement of COVID-19 restriction on Tuesday sealed off Pacific Hotel and Guest Inn for violating the presidential order on hotels due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
The sealing of the Guest Inn was made possible following a court order granted by the FCT Magistrate Court sitting at the Eagle Square.
The Presiding Chief Magistrate Idayat Akanni said the Guest Inn was sealed off for breaches the presidential order of lockdown for a period of one week.
The Chairman of the taskforce, Comrade Ikharo Attah made this known while briefing newsmen on the development, saying, several people who were seen eating and drinking were arrested, before the Guest Inn was sealed.
According to him: “Last weekend we got a report that a wide and an elaborate party was held at the Pacific Hotel and Guest Inn, Nyanya. We sent security operatives the next day to go there and check. And when the team went there to check the next day they saw large crowd of people in there bar eating and drinking.
“Some of them were arrested while others ran away. Those arrested were taken to mobile court and the mobile court judge actually fined them N5, 000 and they engaged them in community service.
“We asked the manager why they disobeyed the presidential order. He said it is beyond him, that it is the owner of the hotel that gave order the the hotel must remain open and parties and other activities should be allowed to go on.
“So we prayed the Judge to grant us an order to scale up the hotel which the Judge graciously granted the order and we went there today and carried out the court order”.
Attah said the hotel remain closed until when the chairman and management of the hotel appears before the Judge and the judge: “gives a verdict or vacate the closed down order, that is the hotel will be reopen”.
He also disclosed that along the same Abuja/Nasarawa border, 50 persons were arrested and turned back to Zanfara for violating the COVID-19 restitution order.
He further stated that, “We also went to the Abuja/Nasarawa border post where we saw intensive search going on and many persons had to spent hows there for no fault of theirs but the truth is that we have been able to get so many persons on that particular point. Just yesterday we got some persons there saying that they left Akwanga heading to Yanfara carrying some food items and when we opened the tappoline, we saw over 50 persons. We turned them back to Akwanga where they were coming from”.
