Insecurity: FCTA demolishes batchers, shanties close to National Assembly

 

 

 

 

Favour Ishember, Abuja

 

 

 

The Federal Capital Territory Administration, FCTA on Wednesday, removed illegal  shanties, batchers and  makeshift structures which were used as shops,  houses, drinking joints and business centers in the three arms zone in Abuja.

 

 

Senior Special Assistant on Monitoring, Inspection and Enforcement to FCT Minister, Ikharo Attah, in an interview with journalists explained that in order to make the three arms zone safe and improve the aesthetics of the area the administration had to remove all the illegal shanties and barchers.

 

According to the SSA, “We came to remove barchers and shanties, illegal containers around the National Assembly area the three arms zone and this is not good at all. With the opening of the road the FCT Minister Malam Muhammad Bello, “discovered it and we had to remove them this morning.

 

“We discovered that people live here, sell here  and we had to remove them in order to make National Assembly safe and to improve the aesthetics, .

 

The FCTA that built the National Assembly will be coming in here and will look at the official land use and redesign to suit the area.

 

 

“Because you can’t have all these sensitive offices and have all these people here, some of the houses people are living here were used for construction sites in the 80s and it has been decommissioned a long time ago and everyone should go”.

 

 

He noted, “About 100 shanties were removed. The three arms zone is largely for sensitive National offices”.

 

 

Attah, said there is no going back on removal of all illegal shanties and barchers in Abuja.

 

 

Director Development Control, Muktar Galadima, said the administration making arrangements to have a good design that would fits into existing environment.

 

 

He said,  “We gave them time to pack their things, so we are here to remove the shanties. Looking at the composition of this area that is three arms zone, so the presence of these structures is not good image for the country and we want to come up with a good design that would fit into the existing environment.

 

 

“We are  coming up with a modest design that would fits into this environment”.

 

 

Mrs Gift Akpan, a food vendor  agreed that they knew from the beginning that the place was illegal and they knew that one-day, they would be asked to leave.

 

 

“We knew one day something like this would happen but we are just begging them to give us another place to do our businesses”, she pleaded.