By Sarah NEGEDU
A community in Lugbe area of AMAC has raised alarm over the proliferation of illegal housing estates around the area, alleging that land grabbers were developing structures on plots meant for public use.
Some of the plots they claim, belong to the Nigerian Police, Fire Service, Post Office, etc, have taken over by a single individual, already fenced and ready to be sold to innocent Nigerians.
Recall that the FCT Director of Development Control, Mukhtar Galadima, had recently decried the proliferation of illegal housing estates and other developments along Idu Train Station, Apo Tapi and Lugbe areas within the Abuja Municipal Area Council.
He said the alarm became necessary, due to the rising adverts on social media by land grabbers and illegal developers of housing estates.
A resident of CRD Estate who gave his name as Mr. Udoh claim the land grabber is working in collaboration with some staff if the FCTA.
According to him, “They come with FCT approvals and their personnel, so it means the same personnels are selling those lands to private individuals. If there must be justice, it must be fair.”
On removal of contraventions in the community, Udoh insisted that most of the buildings have approval but they were shocked to learn that their approvals are fake.
“Even though the buildings were marked but we went to Development Control to rectify them. FCT should help us, we pay tax and more so we are the ones that spent our money to put the infrastructure in place here”, he said.
Senior Special Assistant to the FCT Minister on Monitoring, Inspection and Enforcement, Ikharo Attah, in his response at the site in Lugbe said, “Today we saw some shocking revealation here, when Director FCT Development control, Muktar Galadima raised alarm over the activities of land grappers in Lugbe some few weeks ago, we never really understood the gravity of ways the grappers have gone. But today, a whole community in Lugbe has cried out over land meant for Nigerian Police, Fire service, Post office, town hall, all been taken over by a single individual who fenced it and partition them ready to start selling.
“A few days ago we went to Durumi to reclaim a land that belongs to Nigerian Police in a place called Monkey village, now I think the land grappers are going into dangerous terrain targeting government owned facilities, which I know the FCT Minister Malam Muhammad Bello, will not accept this”.
On FCDA staff being indicted, he said, he doesn’t think it is true, because it is the same FCT staff that are here working hard to remove the contraventions, so they couldn’t have been involved in it.
He lamented that the land grappers are already reaching a very dangerous point.
“The land is getting finished because they know they can no longer take land from the public or take land not allocated, they are now targeting strategic government infrastructure.
