Executive Secretary, Federal Capital Development Authority (FCDA), Engr. Umar Gambo has stated that illegal developments would not be allowed to derail the provision of first-class infrastructure in the districts of the federal capital city.
He said technical personnel in relevant departments of the FCDA and the Federal Capital Territory Administration (FCTA) usually go round to check excesses and infractions by all manner of persons.
“Like when we talked about the issue of population explosion, many people thought when they come in, they can pick any location and put up their buildings, but as we have always said, Abuja is different from other parts of the country.
“It was created by law and it has a master plan, so anywhere you see a space, even if it is one square metre, it has land use and it has a purpose and it must follow that land use.
“The worst one is when people encroach on the right of way of road corridors or waterlines or even stream courses because the streams in the city are buffers for some of our interceptor lines for the sewage pipelines.
“But the most interesting one is people encroaching on road corridors. We have a very peculiar one, where we call Ring Road II. From Apo Mechanic, you come from Wumba to Lokogoma and Galadimawa and then you cross the Airport Expressway up to Katampe.
“We have only one of the carriageways now but it is a 10-lane road. We have two service lanes on either side, left and right; and then you have six, three each on either side of the main carriageway.
“Now in addition to that, we have a water line that is supposed to be on the Apo side again; on the left side of it, we have a water line that was planned some three years ago for it to take water from Tank 5 which is in Apo resettlement area, follow the alignment of that road up to Abuja Technology Village, just on the verge of Galadimawa.
“On getting to where we have the buffer between Wumba and Lokogoma, there is this Peace Court Estate. We just found some of their buildings sitting on the corridor of Ring Road II. In fact, they have truncated this water line that is meant to go up to Abuja Technology Village.
“The intention was not only to go to the village but to also have tee-offs that will go to these mass housing estates in Wumba, Lokogoma and even Dakwo and Galadimawa districts,” Umar further stated.
He insisted that the projects could not be compromised so the houses would be demolished.
“They have to go because they were built without any approvals. Nobody will give them approvals because they are not on their allocated plots. The developer of that area just encroached on his own and we are working to get those structures off our infrastructure because our pipelines have to go and the ring road too, is coming back on stream,” he added.
He lamented that even with genuine allocations, people built extensions that were not in their development approvals, stressing that in a 1000 square metre allocated space, the developer is not expected to choke it with buildings.
“You, in some places, have to have 40-60 per cent arrangement. You build 40 per cent and leave 60 per cent for other things. So many other things have to come in,” he stated.
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