The Federal Capital Territory Administration (FCTA) on Wednesday warned developers and Abuja residents to desist from buying parcels of land from traditional rulers in the nation’s capital.
Mr Ikharo Attah, the Chairman, FCT Ministerial Taskforce on City Sanitation, issue the warning when he led a combined team to demolish over 473 illegal structures at Iddo Sarki community adjacent the main campus of the University of Abuja.
Attah affirmed that only the FCT Minister, Malam Muhammad Bello (not even FCT Minister of State) was legally empowered to allocate any portion of the FCT’s 8,000 square kilometres of land.
The chairman explained that the team returned to the community to complete the demolition it started couple days ago.
” Some of the illegalities of land contravention include buying land from local chiefs, building without building plan approvals and building substandard structures.
” The FCT 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.
” Why we came back here is because we did not finish the clean-up. We thought we had gone very far, not until we noticed that the Land Use Contraventions has been very high and disturbing.
“So we had to cone back here today (Wednesday) to continue the clean up, ” he said.
Attah also warned those residing in illegal structures within Mpape, Dutse Makaranta, Ushafa and others areas to either move out or comply, disclosing that they were next in line for similar clean-up exercises.
” 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 areas, 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,” he said.
On his part, the Secretary, FCT Command and Control Centre, Mr Peter Olumuji, revealed the demolished structures harboured criminals who constituted insecurity in 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 said. (NAN)
