By Ben Adoga
The Federal Capital Territory Administration ( FCTA) has explained that ongoing demolition of illegal structures and environmental cleanup in Kuje Area Council will persist take longer  time for obvious reasons.

This is owing to the enormity of illegal developments which has been perpetrated in that Area Council for over a long period of time.

Giving the explanation on Thursday’s stakeholders’ meeting at the FCTA Secretariat,  Senior Special Assistant on Monitoring, Inspection and Enforcement to FCT Minister, Ikharo Attah who stood in for the minister, Muhammad Musa Bello said it was disheartening seeing public roads converted to markets, and government reserved lands taken over for different purposes.

Bello noted that while FCT Administration has committed a lot of resources into the exercise, the Area Council management needed to put in place a mechanism to prevent unlawful people from jeopardising the huge  success that has been recorded.

The SSA insisted that while indigenous people that have structures within the Kuje railway corridors will get reprieve, non indigenes who ignored warnings to buy land and build houses there, won’t be compensated.

He said he: “The illegalities in Kuje cannot disappear swiftly. Those selling on the road has come to see the road as their property and not a place for all of us. Those who occupied the market parking space see it as a place for them and not for all of us.

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“Those who are converting the rail corridor and selling it, see it as their own and not for all of us. Those who have forcefully removed the Area Council from the fruits market and sold it to individuals see the place for them and not for all of us.

“The FCTA is not coming to take any land from anyone in Kuje, the one FCTA will reclaim,  is the rail corridor which belongs to everyone.  The land that belongs to the people should be left for the council to develop it, for the people”.

Attah stated that while the Administration would ensure due process was followed for the exercise, he called on the Councils  to set up a multi agencies task force to sustain the success achieved through the current exercise.

Earlier in his remarks, Dan Ayuba the Director of Administration in Kuje Area Council, confirmed that the Council had initiated steps towards setting up a committee that will help to keep the level of sanity achieved.

Ayuba who also stated that the Council Chairman and other key officials were support of the ongoing exercise, also disclosed that plans had been perfected to relocate all the traders that  were affected by the demolition.

Also speaking, the Deputy Director, Department of Development Control, Isaiah Ukpannah called on Kuje Area Council management to always collaborate with Urban and Regional Planning Department, as a measure to curtail illegalities.

Ukpannah also stated that the Administration will not compensate anybody who refuses to adhere to rules to engage in any illegalities, especially building in unapproved places.