The Federal Capital Territory Administration (FCTA) has demolished at least 5,000 shanties and other unlawful developments in the Gishiri village extension area of Katampe District as part of efforts to reduce the abuse of the Abuja Master Plan.
Unauthorized structures in a green space with hectares of land space, near the foot of the Katampe hill, that had been set aside for the development of a multipurpose recreational area as well as temporary buildings erected along the local traffic corridors were also demolished.
Speaking on Wednesday in Abuja during another round of removal exercises in the densely populated Gishiri settlement, the Development Control Department’s District Monitor for Katampe and Mabushi, Samson Atureta, said the enforcement team following due procedure got necessary approvals for removal of the encroachments.
Atureta said the team was in Gishiri to continue the removal of encroachments in the area, which has been ongoing, with the aim to reclaim the plots for their legal allottees.
According to him, people who have the right allocations to the plots couldn’t take possession, as over time some people have been dividing and selling parts of the plots as local land, and people have been buying and developing them.
“Those are the houses we have continued to remove today, so that the rightful allottees we takeover their plots. And you could see that there are some new perimeter fences coming up, there are being erected by the rightful allottees.
“We needed to follow due procedures, and that’s why we are here after we got approval to remove the encroachments, so we have been doing it in bits, now we are about 60-70 per cent in the removal of the illegalities there.
“And since we started, we must have removed at least 5,000 shanties or illegal developments in Gishiri”, he added.
He said: “Also, people have started building in a green area which is in hectares of land space, around the foot of the hill, which we are reclaiming, as the place is for recreation. So we are reclaiming that for the developer of the recreational area to take possession of the place. It is a continuation of what we had started, so that we make Gishiri a seren place.
“We are reaching out to the rightful owners of the encroached plots that we can get in contact with, there are some that had submitted their building plans for approval, but we couldn’t process them, because there were indigenous persons there. In fact, some of them are the ones reaching out to us as they have complained overtime about encroachment on their plots.”
It was observed that the the FCT Development Control Department officials backed by a joint team of security personnel stormed the area with one bulldozer and two excavators, and removed the structures bearing its demolition markings situated on legally allocated plots, with only structures with legal approval for development were left untouched. the area.
