By Sarah NEGEDU
True to its earlier threats to pull down unapproved structures around the airport road axis, the FCT Administration on Tuesday, visited the Zamani village where it demolished over 500 of such buildings.
The exercise is coming on the heals of the out cry by the FCTA over the trend of illegal expansion along the Airport road where the administration claims the expansion is being facilitated by local Chiefs and residents who sell plots without government’s approval.
However, the Director of Development Control Department, Murkhtar Galadima, told journalists shortly after the demolition exercise that the operation is a continuous one.
He also denied allegations of bribery by FCTA staff, saying that accusations will not stop them doing their jobs.
He said, “We are demolishing illegal structures all over Abuja. There are over 500 illegal houses that were demolished today alone.
“It is just an allegations but it is not true. You could see that no house was spared, it is only indigenous houses that were spared. Whether you give someone money, it doesn’t matter, that is why I said it is not true. Even those we marked some people tried to cover up our markings and we removed those structures.
“We haven’t finished the exercise and we will finish it tomorrow.”
The Senior Special Assistant on Monitoring Inspection and Enforcement to the minister of FCT, Ikahro Attah, at the venue explained why the indigenous houses were spared, that it was because they were living in Abuja, before the creation of th capital city.
“Yes, upon the directive of Minister of Federal Capital Territory, FCT, Malam Muhammad Bello, said all illegal expansion of indigenous villages should be halted immediately.
“Sadly people who should have gotten legal lands in other parts of the city, come to buy land here, with agreement written on fullscarp sheets, believing that government would not come and when government comes people will defend them, but to our own irony, we discovered that many people invested wrongly in a very painful manner. We saw hundreds of structures that were illegally built, we had to remove them and restore master plan and check in security and to also nature development in the city”.
On leaving indigenous house, he explained, “It is not true the indieginious houses were demolished the ones that were partly touched was immediately stopped. Anyone who said the indigenous houses were demolished is not serious. Even the non indigenes are very angry that we didn’t touched the indieginious houses.
“The indigenes are the ones that have rights because we met them in Abuja and untill when they are resettled and compensated, the other ones don’t have right and they invested their funds wrongly” .
Ganiyu Musa, who was one of those affected, lamented about being treated as a second class citizen.
“I bought from the community Chief and I believe a community Chief have some rights to sell small land. When they came they didn’t mark my house, they didn’t touch my house, I was not at home. Nobody talked to anybody I wasn’t around and they demolished my house as if am not a Nigerian.
“I want the government to know we are all Nigerians and when elections comes they would expect us to vote. I won’t vote again.
“The government should know that we can not all stay in high brow areas and they should remember that their cooks, drivers, house helps live in areas like this” .
