Lugbe community raises alarm over  land grabbers invading  Police, fire service, NIPOST lands.

…… As FCTA Demolishes structures on flood plain

Favour Ishember, the Abuja

A community in Lugbe on Tuesday, raised alarm over the activities of land grabbers in CRD Estate, Lugbe, as they lamented the way and manner land grabbers are buying, and developing structures on properties that are meant for public use.

In particular,  the land being taken over by the land grabbers, including the town hall, the land that belongs to Nigerian Police, Fire Service, post office etc, were all taken over by a single individual and already fenced and ready to be sold to innocent Nigerians.

It would be recalled that FCTA Director of Development control, Mukhtar Galadima, few weeks ago has 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 (AMAC).

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,  Udoh said, “I resides here in CRD estate, “In this same place we have land that are meant for public infrastructure, that belong to government, that have been fenced by  an  individual and is ready to sell off this land and they come with FCTA approvals and their personnel , so the same personnel’s are selling those lands (meant for public infrastructure) to private individuals. If there must be justice, it must be fair”.

On removal of contravention  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.

Muina who also  reside in the area, appealed to Federal Capital Territory Administration, FCTA, to create access road because the major access road they were using in River Park Estate has been blocked. The community had so far spent over N23 million to rehabilitate the road.  We therefore appealed to FCTA to create an access road for the community.

 Senior Special Assistant to the FCT Minister on Monitoring, Inspection and Enforcement, Ikharo Attah, in his response at the site  said,  “Today we saw some shocking revelation  here, when Director FCTA  Development control, Muktar Galadima raised alarm over the activities of land grabbers in Lugbe some few weeks ago, we never really understood the gravity of ways the grabers have gone.

 But today, we didn’t know how far they have gone but a whole community in Lugbe has cried out over land meant for Nigerian Police, Fire service, post office , town hall, have all been taken over by a single individual who fenced it and partition them ready 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 grabbers 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 removing the contraventions , so they couldn’t have been involved in it

“So if he want to blame the FCT staff, they are the ones removing the contraventions in collaboration with other relevant agencies of the government”, he said.

Attah lamented that the land grabbers 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. I know the Police which land are the current target will not lay low. All Police land will be reclaimed. He warned.

Land grbbers should stay low of a land that  is not your own leave it for the original owners, the owners may be government or individuals, or it may be a flood plain, or it can belong to the police, post office , leave land meant for public agencies for them”, he stressed.