Insecurity: Taskforce removes squatters’ settlement along flood plains in Wuse

By Stanley Onyekwere

In continuation with its renewed clean up exercise, the FCT Administration’s ministerial taskteam raided and removed hundreds of squatters from Illegal settlements allegedly harbouring suspected criminal elements within the fringes of a green area in Wuse Zone 3, Abuja.
It was observed that the enforcement team accompanied by joint security personnel drawn from Military and Paramilitary agencies, Wednesday raided and cleared the the settlement area having makeshift structures, constructed with sacks and woods belonged to illegal squatters, who in their hundreds traded and lived there for about three decades.
Also, it was gathered that the settlement situated along flood plain, behind Fraser suites and Church Gate in Central Business District (CDB) hitherto served residential and commercial purposes to the displaced inhabitants mainly farmers and scavengers.
According to the displaced persons, their farms mainly banana and plantain plantations as well as other cash crops are around the flood plains stretching up to Presidential Villa and Karon-Majiji area.
One of the squatters, Sani Halilu, who claimed that it was the first time he experienced such demolition, said it touched his life to the extent that he was lost of words to express what happened to their settlement.
He added that most of them are farmers have been there more than 30 years, and for some of them who are students, they farm and also engage in trading activities to help fend for themselves and families .
“For me, I have been hearing about demolitions of our settlements in the past, but this is the first time I experienced it, and it touched my life to the extent that I’m lost of words to express what happened.
“Normally, we settle in a place, whenever development meets us, we remove to elsewhere, but this is the place we have been for a long time. We are just settling here, as we were not offered this place by the government, but we are just living and hustling here for more than 30 years.
“Even during the of El-rufai era as FCT Minister, we were here. We built our houses and shops, which were demolished. The issue is that our farms mainly banana and plantain plantations as well as other cash crops around this river (flood plains) stretching up to Presidential Villa and Karon-Majiji area.
“Almost 90 per cent of us here are Katsina State indigenes. So we are Nigerians, who have their children and wives here, and I’m appealing to the government to consider us by giving us time and another 0lace where we can settle in peace”, he stressed.
While explaining the exercise, the Senior Special Assistant to the FCT Minister on Monitoring, Inspection and Enforcement, Comrade Ikharo Attah, said it was unacceptable to have such notorious settlement along the river belt in the heart of the city, as numerous criminal acts have been traced to the shanties.
Attah revealed that there have been complaints about bags and phones snatching including the issue of drug dealings along the corridor stretching up to the Central Mosque Area through the Federal Secretariat area.
He said: “We have been here before, this is notorious settlement along the river belt. To our shock, it is far wider than what we we expected as we spent the whole day here.
“So we had cleared it before, but today we wanted to do some thing very comprehensive. We had to remove everything ( all of the illegal shanties) we hope that the crime rate (the rate at which criminals come from the under bridges and attack people- stealing from them will be reduced across the FCT”.