ABUJA – The Federal Capital Territory Administration (FCTA) stepped up its fight against crime in the Mpape community on Wednesday as it removed multiple illicit market stalls, warehouses, and scrap dumps.
While fielding questions from journalists in Mpape, Abuja, the Chairman of the FCT Ministerial Committee on City Sanitation, Comrade Ikharo Attah, said the demolition in Mpape will continue till the second quarter of next year or until the administration is satisfied that the residents are ready to comply with Town Planning Acts.
Attah hinted: “Today work is a little massive than we thought because we removed some massive structures, that are on the roadside, no allocation, no building plan, no papers at all and they harbour the pantakers and criminals that led to the blocking of the road.
“Knowing that the structures are blocking the road and knowing they don’t have documents we had to come in here. The road market at Mpape has been a problem, you saw what we saw this morning, the place was impassible, we have notified the Bwari Area Council Chairman, Mr John Gabaya, and he promised to rebuild the market and make it modern.
“We told him that the market cannot be by the roadside, the market must give way because it was impeding the free flow of traffic and more than 85% of the market have been converted to residential shanties, and that contravenes the urban and regional planning Acts, so we came in here to actually remove them and you can see the work we have done today and Mpape is looking cleaner every day.
” From the way we are seeing Mpape, it may enter 2nd quarters of next year. Once we clear Mpape, we see them coming back. We will not stop coming until Mpape residents comply with Town planning Act and Land use Act”.
While speaking on the issue of security and resistance, he said only two people were arrested and they were suspected to be high on drugs and they would be handed over to the security agencies.
Also speaking on the side occupied by indigenes, he said, “The other side is the organic settlement but we have cleared the roadside, we had to clear the obstruction on the roadside. They are supposed to take 20 meters from both sides but we had to reduce it to 7 meters pending the time they the indigenes are resettled or relocated or reintegrated into the FCT”.
Similarly, the Commander, Joint Security Team, ASP Idowu Azeez, said only 3 people were arrested, someone that was trying to incite people and the other that was caught with a dangerous weapon and has been taken to the station for profiling.
Meanwhile, the Secretary FCT, Command and Control Department of Security Services, Peter Olumuji, said the shanties constituted a security threat to the community, saying, residents had complained to them that their children were being raped.
Source: Independent
