Buildings demolition: Oppression of Abuja homeowners by FCTA must stop

A civil rights advocacy group, Human Rights Writers Association of Nigeria (HURIWA), on Tuesday, slammed the Federal Capital Territory Administration led by the FCT Minister, Mohammed Musa Bello, over the rash demolitions of allegedly unapproved structures in Abuja by the authority. HURIWA also condemned the practice of throwing the poor outside the streets with no option of resettlement or some forms of compensations to help them obtain alternative places of abode like human beings that they are.

HURIWA, in a statement by its National Coordinator, Comrade Emmanuel Onwubiko, said it understands that government is obliged to prevent environmental issues like floods caused by the undue blockage of water channels by some unscrupulous house developers without any forms of government approval.

However, the group faulted the government for being callous by taking people’s roofs from their head, noting that the Minister should eradicate what it calls ‘perennial virus of wickedness’ in some of the enforcers of housing and city planning laws because some staff of FCTA lack empathy by failing to provide an alternative for relocation for hundreds of Abuja residents.

HURIWA said Abuja was the only place in the world where those who have government privileges to loot public funds erect out-of-this world mansions in the city centres that are unoccupied but almost 65 per cent of civil servants and teachers working even for the FCT Ministry live in Nasarawa or Niger states from where they commune to work daily.

“When poor masses can’t find affordable accommodation, they are prone to falling victims of fraudsters who build makeshift huts on government unapproved lands and when the officials come for demolitions they are treated like animals rather than as victims of dupes and 419 house owners who, most times, bribe FCTA staff to look the other way for few months before striking when the unfortunate victims have settled in.”

The group also said it was saddening that some of buildings demolished by the FCTA were done for alleged political reasons.

According to news reports, the FCTA had last week demolished a building belonging to Kpokpogri, an ex-lover to actress Tonto Dikeh, at Guzape in Abuja. The structure is estimated at over N700m.

Although the FCTA claimed that Kpokpogri’s house was built on a major highway, hence the demolition, HURIWA noted that the demolition might not be unconnected to political persecution as alleged by the victim of the demolition.

Kpokpogri had in the past hinted that a government official had begged him to sell the house but he refused. The allegations remained unproven anyway.

Aside from the demolition of Kpokpogri’s house, the FCTA also recently demolished over 300 structures in a densely populated Bassa-Jiwa village, near the Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport, Abuja.

Most of the affected structures were residential buildings, shanties, batchers and kiosks around the Village, off the Airport road. This particular exercise, lawful as it is, could have been carried with a little of human feelings such as providing alternatives to these unfortunate and less privileged Nigerians.

HURIWA noted that the consequences of the demolitions on human habitations in Abuja and of course the possibility that it would lead to a shoot-up of costs of living in the FCT, was so appalling.

“With these demolitions it means hundreds of thousands of residents will be driven further into absolute poverty. This is why the FCT needs to have made adequate alternative arrangements before demolition of these shanties so these people who are thrown out of the streets will have affordable accommodation because many amongst them are victims and not collaborators with those land grabbers.

“There is the need to monitor the FCTA to be sure that the reasons given for demolitions are actually accurate and not just made up tales by moonlight,” HURIWA said.

The group called for investigation of Kpokpogiri’s allegation that his house was demolished because FCT officials wanted to buy it from him but he refused to sell it.