Confronted with persistent obstruction of waterways by residents of the FCT which has continue to cause flooding and loss of lives, in some parts of Abuja, the Federal Capital Territory Administration (FCTA), on Tuesday, said there is no going back in the prosecution of residents, developers and staff that are responsible for the menace.
The Executive Secretary of Executive Secretary, Federal Capital Development Authority (FCDA), Engr. Shehu Hadi Ahmed, stated this when he led some of the FCTA Executives on a tour of flood-prone areas in and around Abuja.
He said the Department of Development Control, has already been given a matching other to immediately removed all constriction and all structures obstructing waterways along Lokogoma district and Airport road corridor
The Executive Secretary, who was in the company of the Director-General, FCT- Emergency Management Agency, (FEMA), Alhaji Abbas Idriss, the Senior Special Assistant on Monitoring, Inspection and Enforcement to the minister of FCT, Ikharo Attah, the coordinator Abuja Metropolitan Management Council (AMMC), Shuaibu Umar, and other management staff, visited Airport road stretch, Lokogoma district and Dutse.
According to FCDA Executive Secretary: “What we set out to do is actually to physically inspect all the critical locations for flash flooding spots within Abuja, especially following the flash flood incidents that occurred on Saturday in which a lot of places were flooded.
“And these have raised a lot of concerns for the FCT administration, the Minister of FCT Malam Muhammad Bello, convened an emergency executive meeting in which he directed, my humble self to lead a team of technical departments that has to do with mitigation of flooding.
“So we embarked on this tour, especially along the airport expressway which is considered one of the principal gateways to international visitors and also presidential roots. We have some concerns about some locations along the airport road that had some washouts; places as Gosa village, Trademore Estate, Galadimawa roundabout, Lokogoma district, where we inspected the Mountain of Fire area, Gogo gada, which is one of the most vulnerable spots anytime it rains. There are problems with drivers wanting to cross the bridge when it is being flooded and often times we have cases of vehicles being swept off and lives are often lost. This can be collaborated by the Director-General of FEMA. We have lost not less than five lives on this spot
“All the places we visited, we have the issue of constriction of waterways and inadequacy of space that would allow passage of water. We have seen that this is an issue that must be addressed immediately and I think as we finished this inspection we are ready to start work”.
On Dongo gada in Lokogoma, a notorious spot that has claimed about five lives, he said, “This particular entry point at Dongo gada is not the plan access to Lokogoma, the plan access is by Ahmadu Bello way extension and since provisions have been made we are going to close up this corridor to redirect traffic to use that point because we cannot continue to endanger the lives of people.
“We take exception to anyone that will want to use this road after it has been closed. We won’t allow any residents to risk their lives.”
He noted: “The Department of Development Control has been given matching order to clear all obstruction on waterways especially Trademore Estate and Lokogoma district.”
On the prosecution of those building on waterways and complexity of staff, he said, “Yes, our actions will be slightly different from what was obtained in the past culprits who responsible in constricting waterways including our officers some complexity in allowing development and we are not going to allow that.”
AMMC coordinator while speaking to journalists at one of the sites, lamented that the selfishness of a few people put lots of people’s lives in danger, which is not acceptable.
“Most of these places that we have seen are attempts by people, to satisfy their interest against the interest of generality.
“The happening around these areas are very dangerous and the people in the area at times have the temerity to take legal actions against us, however, this will not deter us, we have existing laws that empower us to go on this enforcement, we are going to make sure that anyone that does not have any approval, we are going to do our enforcement and even if the person goes to court, we have to enable laws to allow us to do whatever we are doing.
“We are therefore appealing to residents to develop according to regulations because 95% of cases are infringements they are violations and anywhere we found out that approval is given, they are always very minor and if there are any legal provisions that allow the person to be there we can replace you in order to save lives and anyone that require prosecution in this matter shall be prosecuted. Definitely, we are going to save public funds. If we don’t punish, people will not do the right thing.”
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prosecuting persons obstructing waterways… prosecuting persons obstructing waterways… prosecuting persons obstructing waterways…
and then