AMMC to Estate Developers: “All unapproved structures will go down”

• Demolishes buildings on waterways in Guzape

By Stanley Onyekwere

The authorities of Abuja Metropolitan Management Council (AMMC) have vowed to pull down all buildings allegedly encroaching on waterways and other unapproved areas within the nation’s capital city.

AMMC made this point yesterday, as the city managers intensified its enforcement and  monitoring of activities of property developers, in the wake of proliferation of unapproved buildings and other structures allegedly constituting environmental  degradation  in some mass housing estates in Abuja.

AMMC Coordinator, Chief Felix Obuah, who led a team of city managers on a site tour to Utako and Guzape Districts of Abuja, warned that the Council will not spare any building that does not have approval, or that is built on a waterway, road corridors, as it is no longer business as usual.

He also cautioned that the FCT Minister,  Nyesom Wike will not allow anyone to sabotage the efforts ongoing towards restoring the already distorted Abuja Master plan.

Obuah, who spoke while removing structures and questioning a property developer  in a highbrow estate within Guzape District, for encroaching and  converting green areas as well as selling the same to unsuspecting subscribers, who commenced construction without approval.

According to him, the developer of the estate had grossly abused the approval for construction of 18 buildings, by allowing erection of over 40 buildings instead.

He however, assured that all the government officials found culpable in the illegal deals with the developers would be punished in line with extant civil service rules.

He also granted the request for two weeks grace period by the defaulting developer at Guzape to remove all identified  contravening  structures, but warned said that AMMC officials will return to  continue with the demolition, should the developer fail to keep his words.

Also, the AMMC boss, who decried the unlawful invasion of green areas in Utako, by an unnamed foreign company, thereby exposing the city to dangers of flooding and other environmental degradation.

He reiterated that the Council would not relent to recover the place.

Similarly, the Director, Department of Development Control, Mukhtar Galadima, had confirmed that the developer at Guzape, refused to heed the stop work notices served on him.

Galadima disclosed that the enforcement team has doubled its monitoring activities to properly check encroachment and infractions from developers.

Earlier, the developer and owner of Citiscape Villa, Guzape,  Kadiri Ogbaidi accepted wrongdoing, given that  its subscribers have violated the approval given to him by the Department of Development Control.

Ogbaidi  also appealed for time to revert to the original approval given to him.

“We will remove every infraction here as specified by the authority. And we’ll take them out ourselves. We’ll bear the cost. So, we just appeal that the authority should allow us at least two weeks.

“ We’ll start breaking them down. We’ll take them down ourselves. We have been law-abiding, and we only had issues with the authority before.

“ You know it’s an estate, so we have approval for the entire estate. But there have been many infractions here, mostly from our subscribers, who we are responsible for. So, we won’t deny any wrongdoing. We take responsibility“, the developer stated.