Apo mechanic relocation: AMMC reads riot act to traders, artisans

By Stanley Onyekwere

To ensure a hitch-free Apo Mechanic village relocation exercise, the Coordinator, Abuja Metropolitan Management Council (AMAC), Chief Felix Obuah has warned against extortion and registration of unsuspecting traders and artisans not situated on the corridors of Apo mechanic village, as they are not qualified to benefit from the exercise.
In particular, Obuah threatened to ensure that security agencies swiftly arrest any dubious individual or group of persons capturing and promising allocation of land to unqualified artisans and traders in the relocation site in Wasa District of the FCT.
The AMMC Coordinator who spoke during a stakeholders meeting yesterday, alleged that it was discovered that some dubious union leaders are involved in the collection of as much as N600,000.00 to N1,000,000.00 per trader against approved N300,000.00 non refundable fees for land registration in the ongoing the relocation exercise of traders on the road corridors in the area.
He however, disclosed that so far, 11,000 individuals have registered for the relocation exercise.
“As I speak to you, over 11,000 people have collected the registration forms. We put it a N300,000 Naira.
“We try to put this in to make sure that many people who are ghost names will not even apply in the first place. But as of today, over 11,000 have paid, That’s not enough.
“And many people are even using this as 419, they’re going to the back and collecting over N650,000but, and government is currently collecting 300,000.
“People are desperate. That’s why I came to tell them this is what we are doing. I will carry them along in every process, and at the end, whoever that is allocated this shop will be published”, the AMMC Coordinator stated during a meeting to update the traders on the enumeration exercise, proposed design and site plan among other things.
While acknowledging the difficulties he faced in dealing with the traders, he noted that over 45,000 names were submitted initially by different unions, describing such as inflated list.
According to him, the blotted names, among other false claims made the Council to conduct physical enumeration of the would-be affected traders.
“As a matter of fact, the meeting was actually meant to brief them how far we have gone with the arrangement of relocating them to Wasa.
So we invited the stakeholders of Apo traders, mainly all the association heads, to brief them on how far we have gone, the essence of the enumeration, the essence of the form and how many people have paid and what next we intend to do.
“It is purely for those of them in the road corridor and those of them in the buffer areas, as these forms are not meant for people who are not along the corridor.
“I have discovered that most of them have gone as far as collecting money from people who are not having business to do with Apo, just because they want to grab land especially some of them who have money”, he stated.
Declaring that the exercise would be concluded before the end of the month, Obuah, noted that: “the plan to relocate the traders that have suffered different set back since 25 years ago would be concluded by this administration.
“You can see the next day, if you are following the brekete family news, you can see what happened. They were able to be convinced, and they were pleading that they have seen the truth now that please can the AMMC Coordinator allow them to now pay.
“Rumour has it that those shops have been given out to government officials, to girlfriends and brothers, but I was able to make it plain to all of them, not even one, and the Minister is not interfering”.