By Stanley Onyekwere
In continuation of its invigorated effort to halt the distortion of Abuja’s mastplan, the FCT Administration yesterday removed over 473 illegal structures Iddo Sarki community, in Abuja Municipal Area Council (AMAC).
Recall that over the weekend, the FCTA officials pulled down no fewer than 200 buildings, ranging from blocks of hostels, shopping malls, hotels and makeshift structures in the community, located adjacent the University of Abuja.
The enforcement team, comprising the Nigeria Navy, Nigeria Police Force, DSS, NSCDC, NDLEA, Nigeria Immigration Service and DRTS, working with five bulldozers, levelled illegal buildings with ease.
Chairman, FCT Ministerial Committee on City Sanitation, Ikharo Attah, explained that the team had to go back to Iddo to complete the work it has started in the community.
Attah noted that leaving the demolition exercise halfway, uncompleted would only encourage reemergence of illegal structures and perpetuation of illegality which would further distort the Abuja Master Plan.
According to him: “Why we came back to here was because we did not finish the clean up. We thought we had fine very far, not until we noticed that the Land Use Contraventions have been very high and disturbing.
“So we had to cone back here today (Wednesday) to continue the clean up. Thanks directors of Development Control and Security who out heads together for us to get four to five machines.
“Some of the illegalities of land contravention include buying land from local Chiefs, building without building plan approvals, building substandard structures and the authorities will not allow these to continue because the city is planned and when we see contravention, it is the mandate of the FCTA to take it out”.
He however, sent a strong warning to those residing in illegal structures within Mpape, Dutse Makaranta, Ushafa and other areas to either move out or comply, adding that they were next in line for similar clean up exercises.
He said: “We have to rush this work now because the people of Mpape, Dutse Makaranta and Ushafa -both the residents and landlords are begging the FCT Minister to come and clean up their area, so we will soon be going to assist them.
“We are seeing encroachments even in the Lower Usuma Dam where we get our safe water to drink. We don’t want people to go there and pollute our water.”
Similarly, Secretary, Command and Control Centre, FCT, Peter Olumuji revealed that another reason demolishing the structures was because they harboured criminals who constitute insecurity within the area and the whole of FCT.
“One of the reasons why we are here is because such places hibernate criminals because they can get cheaper houses to rent.
“We have had a sustained clean up operation on the airport road and this has led to reduction in the rate of crime and criminality in the FCT”, he stressed.
