Airport Road cleanup: FCTA dismantles shanties in Lugbe village

• … It’s facility upgrade- Council official

By Stanley Onyekwere

In continuation with its reinvigorated routine cleanup exercise along corridors of the ever-busy Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport road, the  Federal Capital Territory Administration (FCTA) has raided and dismantled shanties and other illegal structures in Lugbe neighbourhood village, one of the densely populated unplanned settlements in Abuja Municipal Area Council (AMAC).

It was observed that FCTA city management officials accompanied by a joint security team, including Fire Service Service and Road Safety personnel, removed no fewer than three hundred makeshift and other illegal structures attached to the perimeter fence of the community, popularly known as Lugbe Neighborhood across Zone B and Zone 5 Car wash , all on the corridors of the Airport road.

Also, five Christian and Muslim worship Centres, overhead water supply tank for a pivately operated toilet facility as well as broadside block industry were pulled down during the exercise.

Our correspondent reports that the cleanup exercise, which started at Lugbe-Berger, Car wash and Lugbe zone 5 lasted for seven hours, in the aftermath of heavy downpour.

Explaining the exercise, Chairman, FCT Ministerial Committee on City Sanitation, Comrade Ikharo Attah, said the operation was part of the effort to keep the gateway into the nation’s capital, Abuja clean, thereby improving on the asthestics of the nation’s capital city.

Attah recalled that the FCT Minister, Malam Muhammad Musa Bello had visited the area recently with the commissioner of Police and some strategic army officers including other security heads in the Territory, and they were displeased with the level of infringement in the area.

The chairman added that the indigenous chiefs also complained that most of the areas that the inhabitants of the community ought to park their cars along the fence line were all converted into shops and homes.

According to him, the FCT Administration had fenced the organic settlement for the residents waiting for resettlement but regretted that the plan had been contravened by those within the areas, which violates the Abuja master plan.

“The people have turn the fence line to motor park, where car owners park and pay N1,000 on monthly basis. And there are dumpsites at the back of the Villages, but some still come to the front to dump waste”

“But, in line with town planning rules and to keep the city clean and safe, we are not going to be detered, this comprehensive clean up show that FCT Administration is committed to keeping the city clean.

“One of the  key issues is to keep to the acceptable standards, if you are driving in through the Airport Road what you see is not befitting, Abuja Environmental Protection Board (AEPB) is doing well, by evacuating the heavy waste generated there.

Attah explained that the exercise was to ensure that Abuja especially along the Airport Road is maintained in line with the best practices of orderliness and sanitation”, he stressed.