Residents of the Mpape Community have been given a two-week demolition notice by the Federal Capital Territory Administration (FCTA), ahead of bulldozers berthing there as part of the current city-wide cleanup exercise.
The FCT Ministerial Committee on City Sanitation, led by Comrade Ikharo Attah, hinted on Tuesday that the purported directive from a Commissioner of the Public Complaint Commission to halt demolition within the city cannot prevent the removal of all illegal structures that are environmental nuisances.
The two-week notice was in accordance with the FCT Administration’s objective of including all key stakeholders in sensitizing all impacted communities and ensuring maximum compliance.
Attah, on the other hand, explained that sending the bulldozers to Mpape for the clean-up was in response to residents’ complaints that traders and mechanics unlawfully occupying road corridors were hindering traffic flow.
According to him; “After the two weeks, all illegal structures along the road would be demolished, to save the people from any untoward situation that could threaten both human lives and the environment.
” We will be entering Mpape in the next two weeks. We have asked them to remove whatever is on the roadside. The beauty of the exercise, is that it was the Landlords and tenants who wrote to the Minister to come for the demolition.
” They said the whole road stretch is not passable, a journey from Mpape to the city centre that should take 6 or 7 minutes, is now 1 or two hours because of traffic gridlock.
” We are moving into Mpape with up to six bulldozers to remove every nuisances. It is going to be massive removal of illegal containers occupying the road shoulders, all mechanic workshops, car wash and blood industries and all the attachment that people have located on the road.
He continued; ” We are also going to ensure that all undeveloped plots of land along the road shoulders are left empty, so that activities there will not flow to the road.
” The alleged directive from a Commissioner of the Public Complaint Commission did not mention Mpape, the Commissioner referred to the exercise at Iddo Sarki, where some people alleged that we demolished indigenous peoples houses.
” The Commissioner has gone to the community and have discovered that no house belonging to any indigene was demolished.
” I can state that not a single house belonging to an Abuja indigene was demolished. The houses that were demolished at Iddo Sarki were all houses built by people who illegally bought land from local Chiefs. Over 90 percent of the demolished buildings were actually owned by uniformed people “.
