Following the expiration of a seven-day ultimatum given to the illegal occupants at popular Apo market by the Federal Capital Territory Administration (FCTA) to vacate the place, the Ministerial Taskforce on City Sanitation, on Monday, in Abuja, impounded five vehicles parked illegally by car dealers, as well as seized 26 rams and five cattle from the cattle market.
It, therefore, declared that the seized vehicles and animals would be taken to the Mobile Court, and a forfeiture order would be sought, so that the rams and cattle can be distributed to the Prison and various orphanage homes.
Photo: Ademola Adegbitee
Its Chairman, Ikharo Attah, who disclosed this to newsmen in Abuja, said the action became imperative as some people were bent on constituting nuisance that could threaten the city’s security and jeopardise environmental safety.
He explained that illegal motor park around the Apo Roundabout and the cattle market have not just the aesthetic beauty of the road corridors, but have been turned to hideouts for drug peddlers and men of the underworld.
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Attah noted that the issues of sanitation within the nation’s capital is a priority that could not be sacrificed to personal or any group interests, hence, the need to give adequate attention to it, especially in the period of COVID 19 pandemic.
While warning all illegal occupants to vacate from the road corridors, the chairman vowed that his team would sustain the tempo of the cleanup exercise until sanity was restored to that road with a view to fast-tracking the completion of the various projects in that axis that have been hampered by the activities of the illegal occupants.
According to him: “the exercise is carried out on the orders of the FCT Minister, Mallam Muhammad Musa Bello, through a special committee he set up to clear up the Outern Sourthern Expressway, we have cleared several illegalities on the road stretch and corridors.
“These include the Gudu popular Ram market, Scrap market, otherwise known as pantaker and the illegal motor park around the Apo Roundabout.
“We cannot continue to look away from all the illegality and contravention of the city’s Master Plan. We have also going to be ensuring that this operation is sustained. We have a surveillance team that will be checking these places on a daily basis to ensure that illegal occupants do not return., he promised.
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