The Federal Capital Territory Administration FCTA on Tuesday embarked on massive demolition of illegal motorparks and shanties in Zuba, Abuja’s main transit town, saying the exercise would continue until it rids the city of criminal elements and restores its “green areas”.
Petty traders in the area were visibly angry as the FCT Ministerial Task Team on City Sanitation dismantled the illegal parks and shanties.
Officials of the team led by its chairman Attah Ikharo had stormed the town early Tuesday and went straight to the popular Dankogi area on the Zuba-Kaduna expressway to carry out the exercise.
Mr Ikharo explained that removing the structures was in line with the directives of the FCT minister, Malam Muhammad Musa Bello to maintain sanity in the city.
He added that the exercise followed the Minister’s directive on the need to reclaim the inter-change in Zuba being abused by traders and motorists.
He regretted that the inter-change has been taken over by shanties in the name of trading, causing gridlock and security threats.
“The minister is not comfortable with the abuse of the plan of the inter-change which is supposed to be ‘green’ but was converted into a transport hub that is gradually becoming a shanty and a den for crininals. The area has also become a plantain market.
“We are removing the illegal structures to reclaim Zuba because some criminals are coming to the spot, so the exercise today is multi dimensional; one is to reclaim the Zuba inter-change, two is to remove shanties where criminals hide, three is to free traffic coming from Kubwa-Dei-Dei axis that connect Zuba and Zuma rock axis on Abuja-Kaduna express way.
“There is a market for the traders, so they should move in, not selling on the road,. They feel that selling on the road will provide quick market for them, but we are discouraging them and appealing to them to relocate and leave the road inter-change or corridor,” he said.
On sustaining the exercise, Hassan Ogbole of the Department of Development Control said after the clean up, the Department of Parks and Recreation is expected to take over the area for proper management.
“We have done our part and it is now left for the Department of Parks and Recreation to take over the management of the area. It is either they come in as a department, or hand it over to a contractor that will manage it”, he stated.
