There was gridlock in the Kuje area of Abuja on Monday, as the Federal Capital Territory Administration (FCTA) commenced a week-long planned demolition of illegal structures and clean-up exercise.
The FCTA officials after months of sensitisation and abatement notices from relevant authorities and endorsement of Kuje stakeholders stormed the place, backed by a heavy security team drawn from the Military, Police and Para-military agencies to clear roadside encroachments from the notorious tipper garage to the Kuje main market.
During the clean-up exercise, which lasted for about seven hours, hundreds of structures ranging from kiosks, containers, and attachments to stores and worship centres, shanties and signposts encroached on the road corridors.
Speaking with newsmen, Senior Special Assistant to FCT Minister on monitoring, inspection and enforcement, Ikharo Attah, said the exercise is under the minister’s directive and under the guidance of police commissioner, Sunday Babaji and other security heads in the territory
Attah added that the minister has not been comfortable with the nature of Kuje, as the extreme contraventions in multiple places in Kuje, make the area very unsafe, illegal settlements, due to the extreme road encroachment, roadside trading, encroachment of rail corridors, and other contraventions in Kuje.
According to him, the clean-up would be a week-long exercise, as Kuje has been very worrisome in some areas of insecurity.
“Today, we have been able to address the roadside encroachment from the tipper garage to the main market, we couldn’t enter the forest, but we told them to park that forest is not supposed to be a market while we also touched the fruit market.
” Tomorrow we will be claiming the rail corridor, the entire rail corridor, and keep it safe so children can use it for recreation.
“We marked Kuje about four months ago. And we have been waiting for long, so the word of caution is what they have seen today.
On the encroachment of the railway, the SSA explains: “Kuje chiefs and indigenes have denied selling the rail corridor to anyone and we have asked them who sold to them, they can’t say. So we have been directed by the Minister to reclaim the rail corridor.
“The tipper garage, being a notorious place, we will keep coming, and Kuje is now like Gwarinpa”
Charity Onu, a trader, who owns a shop in the Kuje market said that they were forced to bring goods to the roadside, due to the obstructions on the road leading to the market.
According to her: “Clearing of the road is very good as it will pave a way for people to come inside, but I will like to appeal to the government to give the dislodged roadside traders a new place, where they can do their business.” She stated.
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