The Federal Capital Territory Administration (FCTA) has announced plans to demolish illegal structures in Mpape community in Abuja within the next few days.
Recall that some days ago, the Public Complaints Commission called on the Minister of the Federal Capital Territory, Muhammed Bello, to suspend all ongoing demolition exercises within the FCT.
The FCT Commissioner in the PCC, Dalhatu Ezekiel, said the commission had received a petition from the Coalition of FCT Indigenous Associations on the matter.
The commissioner, however, said pending the investigation of the petition, demolition should be put on hold.
But while addressing journalists in Abuja on Tuesday, the Chairman of the Ministerial Committee on City Sanitation, Ikharo Attah, said stopping the demolition of illegal structures would leave the city in ruins. He also said the planned demolition exercise in Mpape would be massive.
He said, “We should be entering Mpape in the next two weeks. The beauty of this is that the landlords and tenants in the area wrote to the Minister demanding for this.
“The entire stretch of the road leading to the community is not passable and takes like an hour to get to town. It should not take more than six to seven minutes.
“We had earlier issued notices for them to leave. The airport road is taking our time, we should be done in the next two weeks, thereafter all attention would now be on Mpape.
“We may likely be coming with six heavy machines.
“If you stop demolition in the city, you have killed Abuja.”
He added that so many illegal structures being demolished at Ido were built during the lockdown
Attah added, “If you watch what happened at Ido, all the demolished structures were built during COVID-19. They started building under the cover of lockdown. If demolition is to stop, then the city is gone and would become a slum.
“I want to state that not one indigenous house was touched during the exercise at Ido as claimed. All the houses demolished were those bought, majority of those whose structures were touched are owned by uniform men.”