Petty traders at Zuba a suburb of Abuja were visibly angry on Tuesday, as FCT Ministerial Task Team on City Sanitation dismantled illegal motor parks and shanties in the area.
Officials of the team led by its Chairman, Ikharo Attah, in the wee hours of Tuesday, stormed the popular Dankogi area on the Zuba-Kaduna expressway and demolished the illegal motor parks which the traders operate in makeshifts, constituting a security threat to the people.
Fielding questions from journalists after the exercise tagged ‘clean up’ the chairman said removing the structures was in line with the directives of the minister of the FCT Malam Muhammad Bello to maintain sanity in the city.
Attah explained that the exercise followed the Minister of FCT’s directives on the need to reclaim the interchange in Zuba being abused by traders and motorists.
He regretted that the interchange has been taken over by shanties in the name of trading, causing gridlock and nuisance.
The chairman stated that “the minister is not comfortable with the abuse of the plan of the interchange which is supposed to be green but is converted into a transport hub that is gradually becoming a shanty and criminals’ den; 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 interchange, another is to remove shanties where criminals hide, the third is to free traffic coming from Kubwa-Dei-Dei axis that connects Zuba and Zuma Rock axis on Abuja-Kaduna expressway.
“There is a market for the traders, so they should move in, not sell on the road, they feel selling on the road provides a quick market for them, we are discouraging that by appealing to them to relocate and leave the road interchange, or corridor,” he said.
On sustaining the exercise, Hassan Ogbole of the Department of Development Control said after the cleanup, the Department of Parks and Recreation is expected to take over the area for proper management.
“We have done our part, it is 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.”
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