Ikharo Attah , senior special Assistant on Monitoring, Inspection and Enforcement to the minister of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), has said that those who are patronizing local chiefs and indigenes in the allocation of plots of land in the capital territory are doing so at their own risk.
According to him, it is only the minister that has constitutional power to allocate in the federal capital.
Speaking today, December 19 while demolishing illegal structures at Guzape I and Guzape II, in Abuja, Ikharo said: “cleanup of illegal structures in Abuja will continue ‘during’ and ‘after’ the yuletide.
“We came here today to actually continue from where we stopped because some persons in FCDA informed us that we haven’t finished the job.
“The one at Kobi village in Guzape II, all the illegal structures on the road corridors were all removed today in order to give way to the infrastructural work that is ongoing in that area.
“The main Guzape I village here, we are trying to remove the illegal structures, shanties and all encroachment that are owned by non-indigenes were all removed here.
“We have warned the non-indigenes to stop buying land from the locals, the locals are up, you can see the village up there, they are in their respective homes watching what is ongoing”.
“We will be working deep into Christmas and probably ‘during’ Christmas and ‘after’ Christmas.”
One of the affected persons, who simply gave his name as Mr. Amos said he bought the land about two years ago for N120, 000 from the indigenes and moved in 2021.
“I built here in Kobi Sarki. I built about two years ago. I bought 25:30 square meters at N120,000, nobody told me that the land is illegal. I bought the land from the indigenes and they gave me a paper from Madaki’s house and it was the Emir that signed the paper they gave to me. I even paid for the signing of the paper, I paid N3k.
“I started building in 2020 and I parked in 2021, and I spent about N1 million to build the house and everything is gone now.
“Nobody informed us that the land is illegal; if they had told me I wouldn’t have bought the land or built here. The locals are supposed to tell us that they will still demolish the buildings.”
He said that he might be moving back to the village.
Also, Mr. Yohhana who was also affected lamented the fact that nobody told them that their houses will be demolished one day.
He said that the first demolition they held a meeting with the indigenous people and they assured them that no demolition for now but that now their houses are gone.
He said that he bought his land for N70,000 and he wants his money to be refunded.
He said the Madaki has already asked them to go after the people that sold the land to them in order to get their refund.
