Demolition: Kuje illegalities too alarming to be tolerated – FCTA insists

By Stanley Onyekwere

The ongoing demolition of illegal structures and holistic environmental Sanitation in Kuje Area Council  won’t end soon, because illegalities there have become too alarming to be tolerated, according to the Federal Capital Territory Administration (FCTA).

To this end, the FCTA urged the Area Councils’ leadership to set up a multi agencies task force to sustain the success achieved through the exercise, even it insisted that all the demolition in Kuje followed due processes.

This assertion was made during a  stakeholders dialogue, organised by the office of the Senior Special Assistant to FCT Minister on Monitoring, Inspection and Enforcement,  held yesterday, to get feed back from both  political and community elders in Kuje. 

Senior Special Assistant on Monitoring, Inspection and Enforcement to FCT Minister, Ikharo Attah decried that it was disheartening seeing that public roads were converted to illegal markets, while government’s reserved lands while taken over for different purposes. 

Attah noted that while FCT Administration has committed a lot of resources into the exercise, the Area Council management need to put in place a mechanism to prevent unlawful people from jeopardising the huge  success that has been recorded. 

He insisted while indigenous people that have structures within the Kuje railway corridors will get reprieve, non indigenes who ignored warnings to buy land and build houses there, won’t be compensated. 

“ The illegalities in Kuje cannot disappear swiftly. Those selling on the road has come to see the road as their property and not a place for all of us. Those who occupied the market parking space see it as a place for them and not for all of us. 

“ Those who are converting the rail corridor and selling it, see it as their own and not for all of us. Those who have forcefully removed the Area Council from the fruits market and sold it to individuals see the place for them and not for all of us. 

“The FCTA is not coming to take any land from anyone in Kuje, the one FCTA will reclaim,  is the rail corridor which belongs to everyone.  The land that belongs to the people should be left for the council to develop it, for the people”, he said.

Earlier in his remarks, Dan Ayuba the Director of Administration in Kuje Area Council, confirmed that the Council had initiated steps towards setting up a committee that will help to keep the level of sanity achieved .

Ayuba, who also  that the Council Chairman and other key officials were in support of the ongoing exercise, also disclosed that plans had been perfected to relocate all the traders dislodged by the demolition. 

Also speaking, the Deputy Director of Department of Development Control, Isaiah Ukpannah called on Kuje Area Council management to always collaborate with Urban and Regional Planning Department, as a measure to curtail illegalities. 

He opined that the administration will not compensate anybody who refuses to adhere to rules to engage in any illegalities, especially building in unapproved places.