Guzape: Residents groan as Taskforce clears encroachments on road corridors in Kobi village

By Stanley Onyekwere

In order to pave way for the ongoing infrastructural works Kobi village in Guzape II area of Abuja, several illegal  houses and other structures on the road corridors were yesterday removed by FCT Administration.

Also removed were purported illegal structures mainly shanties belonging to non- indigenous  and all encroachments to the main Guzape I village.

Explaining the exercise, Senior Special Assistant to FCT Minister  on Monitoring, Inspection and Enforcement, Comrade Ikharo Attah said it was actually continuing from where the enforcement stopped before, as some persons in Federal Capital Development Authority (FCDA) informed them that they haven’t finished the job. 

Attah said : “We had marked earlier for removal and we are now here to remove them.  When we came here they thought the locals will come and tell us when to remove and not when to remove, the locals are in their houses and those who bought land from them are  crying and the Minister has asked us to clear to pave way for the infrastructural work that is ongoing in the area. 

“And we have warned the non indigenes to stop buying land from the locals, the locals are up, you can see the village up there, they are in their respective homes watching what is ongoing.

“We will be working deep into the Christmas and probably ‘during’ Christmas and ‘after’ the Christmas”. 

One of those affected who simply identified himself as Mr Amos, disclosed that he had bought the reclaimed land about 2 years ago for N120, 000 from the indigenes and moved in 2021.

 He laments that, “Nobody informed us that the land is illegal if they had told me I wouldn’t have bought  the land or build here. The locals are supposed to tell us that they will still demolish the buildings. 

“I built here Kobi Sarki. I built about two years ago. I bought 25:30, at N120,000,  nobody told me that the land is illegal. I bought the land from the indigenes and they gave me a paper from Madaki  house and it was the Emir (monarch) that signed the paper they gave to me.  I even paid for the signing of the paper, I paid N3,000.00. 

“I started building in 2020 and I parked in 2021, and I spent about one million Naira to build the house and everything is gone now. So I might be moving to the village. 

Another dislodged person, Mr. Yohana, also decried the fact that nobody told them that their houses will be demolished one day. 

He said after the first demolition, they held a meeting with the indigenous people, and were assured that no demolition for now, but now their houses are gone.

He claimed that he bought his land for N70,000, and declared that he wants his money to be refunded. 

According to him, the Madaki (the village chief) has already instructed to go after the people that sold the land to them, in order to get their refund.