By Ben Adoga
Worried by the increased criminal activities around Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport, Abuja, the Federal Capital Territory Administration, FCTA, on Tuesday, demolished over 500 illegal houses, in Zamani village, Abuja.

However, those affected who are not natives are demonstrating that they are being treated as second-class citizens in Nigeria.

They claimed the demolition was selective and accused the government department of bribery.

Director, Development Control Department, Mukhtar Galadima, who spoke to journalists at the venue said the operation was to rid the area of criminal elements and infractions to the Abuja Master Plan.

Galadima who confirmed that over 500 illegal structures were demolished dismissed the accusation of bribery and said it’s baseless.

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He explained that all the demolished homes were marked and given notice. That those buildings that were not touched belonged to natives.

It has been explained that the natives homes were not demolished because the government was yet to resettle the natives.

Also explaining, the Senior Special Assistant on Monitoring Inspection and Enforcement to the minister of FCT, Ikahro Attah, said that the natives were living in Abuja, before the creation of the federal capital.

However, he said the minister had warned natives of selling lands illegally to residents, especially, granting illegal access to residents to build where they are not supposed to build.

“Sadly people who should have gotten legal lands in other parts of the city, come to buy land here, with agreement written on full scarp sheets, believing that government would not come and when government comes people will defend them, but to our own irony , we discovered that many people invested wrongly in a very painful manner. We saw hundreds of structures that were illegally built, we had to remove them and restore the master plan and check insecurity and to also nature development in the city.”

“The indigenes are the ones that have rights because we met them in Abuja and until when they are resettled and compensated, the other ones don’t have right and they invested their funds wrongly.”

Some of those affected complained that it was a selective exercise as only non natives were affected.

Ganiyu Musa, who was one of those affected, lamented about being treated as a second class citizen.

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“I bought the land from the community Chief and I believe a community chief have some rights to sell small land

When they came they didn’t mark my house, they didn’t touch my house, I was not at home. Nobody talked to anybody I wasn’t around and they demolished my house as if am not a Nigerian.

“I want the government to know we are all Nigerians and when elections come they would expect us to vote. I won’t vote again.

“The government should know that we can not all stay in high brow areas and they should remember that their cooks, drivers, house helps live in areas like this.”