Ebonyi Govt To Shut Down Any Hotel That Harbours Underage Girls

By Priscilla Eke

Ebonyi State Government has threatened to close down hotels, nightclubs, bars, and restaurants in the state caught harboring criminals and underage girls for immoral acts.

The Commissioner for Border Peace and Internal Security, Stanley Okoro Emegha stated this in a statement yesterday in Abakaliki, the state capital.

He opined that some of the hotel proprietors aid criminals by allowing them to use their facilities as bases for criminal operations in the state.

He also alleged that minors and underage girls are allowed access to the hotels till late in the night.

The Commissioner, however, expressed dismay at the alarming increase of immorality in many hotels and nightclubs in the state and promised to bring an end to it.

In his words: ” It has been observed that hoodlums have formed the habit of hanging out in hotels, restaurants, and joints till late in the night, from where they usually take off to execute criminal plans and all forms of criminality within Abakaliki metropolis.

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“Sometimes, the proprietors of these joints are privy to the nefarious activities of these hoodlums without exposing their identities to security agents for arrest and prosecution, notwithstanding the fact that the state government has been keeping close surveillance on these joints for some time now”.

“Consequently, the state government has perfected arrangements to seal the affected joints if the said proprietors who are assumed to be partners in crime with the hoodlums, fail to refrain from such reprehensible act.

“It has also been observed that some managers of nightclubs have shamelessly allowed some of their teeming customers to parade a retinue of minors and under-aged youths especially teenage girls below the age of 18 years, who usually indulge in all manners of immoral lifestyle, at awkward hours of the night.”