By Stanley Onyekwere
The FCT Administration has vowed to sustain removal of illegal structures and nuisances, even before, during and after the forthcoming 2023 elections, so as to restore sanity in the city.
Making this stance known yesterday, the Senior Special Assistant to FCT Minister on Monitoring, Inspection and Enforcement, Ikharo Attah, said was unacceptable that people are just building shanties indiscriminately in Abuja, the nation’s capital city.
Attah spoke when he led city enforcers, accompanied by a joint security operatives on a clean up exercise to the market and other parts of Dutse.
He revealed that the FCT Minister Malam Muhammad Bello is committed in ensuring the city is clean before, during and after election.
He also added that as long as the government are paying salaries and allowances to the city enforcers, the work must go on.
According to him, “It is unacceptable that everyone are just building shanties and other make-shift structures everywhere.
“It really very disheartening and we discovered that the more you work the more you see illegalities to remove. We are doing our jobs and we keep on doing it.
“I think the major thing we saw is the issue of allegations and counter allegations of people that are involved in irregularities especially those pertaining to government official accused of compromising standards in many areas including the illegalities in Dutse-Alhaji market”.
He continued, “I think people don’t understand that those of us doing enforcement, are under heavy pressure the Minister of FCT appears not to be relenting at all.
“The Minister gave a matching order that all enforcement officers must do their jobs and all political appointees must do their jobs so I don’t see any enforcement stopping soon.
“Yes, people have said within a short time that we are going to get tired and they even boosted before us that election is coming that we are going to get tired but the Minister has said that the city must be clean in and out of the election.
“So until the last day we leave office as long as government are paying us our salaries and allowances, we must work for the money.
“And that is what we are doing here, DRTS, Development Control, AEPB, SSA’s office etc, every department that are under enforcement are all under high pressure by the Minister to go and do their jobs.
“We must do our jobs, so if anybody who says we are not going to come, we will come. Even in Dutse-Alhaji where they said we are not going to come, we went there and we want to ensure that only those who have shops are selling there and the buyers come there to buy and leave”.
Commenting on government officials that allegedly compromised, Attah said, “We come out to do our jobs and if possible also looking inward to ensure we are not compromised.
“That is why some of the people we removed their illegality claimed that an officer in the government gave them the place. If possible we purge ourselves and keep doing our jobs”, he stressed.
Earlier, some of the affected persons mostly market women, who do not want their names in print, had allegedly accused the FCTA officials in the market of allocating space to those who built illegal shanties, containers, etc.
They claimed that it is not only the market manager that allocates space, the FCT officials also collect money and allocates space too.
Never miss a moment! Get the stories shaping Nigeria, delivered straight to your phone. Follow Peoplesdaily Newspaper on WhatsApp for breaking news, exclusive reports, and the headlines everyone will be talking about, before anyone else.
