Re: Abuja demolition: Confusion trails baby, mum’s death

The real situation of the matter as it happened, and as contained within portions of your report of the above caption, published on Saturday, June 21, is that the Department of Development Control of the FCT Administration went to a village (Lungi) near Gwarinpa to effect the removal of illegal structures.  The illegal occupants have […]

The real situation of the matter as it happened, and as contained within portions of your report of the above caption, published on Saturday, June 21, is that the Department of Development Control of the FCT Administration went to a village (Lungi) near Gwarinpa to effect the removal of illegal structures.  The illegal occupants have been served notices for over a year by the Development Control when their illegal structures were still at foundation level.
But the owners of the illegal structures in connivance with some inhabitants of Lungi village took the FCTA to court in a bid to challenge the action of the Development Control in issuing demolition notice to them. The case dawdled in court while they continued to build their illegal structures, not until this year, that court vacated the order which stopped the FCTA from demolishing illegal structures in Lungi Village.
As a responsible Administration, based on the latest development, the FCTA had sequences of meetings with the Chief of the village and all stakeholders with a view of sensitizing them on the court verdict and the actions that Development Control were going to embark on to remove illegal structures in the village.
The Development Control arrived at the scene at about 9.30am and demolition of illegal structures commenced smoothly with members of the security core present. The exercise ended at about 12.50pm, with no complaint or claim of injury or death whatsoever from the inhabitants of the village. The demolition squad completed their job and left the site with their machinery intact, they returned back to the office in Zone 6.
Surprisingly, around two hours later, people were organized to perpetrate a protest based on a fabricated allegation that a child was murdered by the demolition squad, which made the mother of the child to commit suicide. The protesters not only demonstrated in the vicinity of Lungi but they also blocked the ever busy Zuba/Kubwa 10-lane expressway, in so doing, preventing people from going about their lawful duties and entering or leaving the city from that axis for over four hours(from 3.00pm to 7.00pm).
Unfortunately, the claim that a child was murdered in the course of the demolition was not accorded enough inquiry before the news was published to the general public, and Weekly Trust quoted a source as saying that a boy was killed during demolition. However, while your approach highlighted the confusion over the issue, other papers just ran with it as they pleased. Another major paper reported that a three year old girl was killed, another one purported that a two-month-old baby died while the mother committed suicide. Another said a mother and her baby died during a demolition exercise while one reported that the mother took a broken bottle and stabbed herself to death. How many versions of a story can the public afford to have? 
In this age digitalization and sophistry in communication, if such a thing had occurred it would have been videoed and posted on social media, going viral on the internet. Besides, the procedure of the Department of Development Control in removal of illegal structures will not allow such a thing to happen, as a result of the fact that even after notices are issued, before structures are demolished, officials must enter such structures to ascertain that no human presence is in the structure.
The officials must also ensure that occupants are given fair opportunity to remove their valuables, except in situations where there is no cooperation from occupants of illegal structures who decide to willfully leave there belongings at the structure earmarked for demolition.
With regards to human lives, if anybody is inside a structure, demolition is usually halted until that individual is removed to a safe distance from the site of demolition. The officials are never authorized and have never demolished any structure with any living or dead person. Then, it remains absurd for anyone to assert that FCT Administration that carries out its demolition exercise through the Development Control with a strict compliance to the best standard practice has committed such an act.
All law-abiding residents and visitors alike in the FCT must refuse to approve the lies fabricated by the perpetrators of this illegal protest and blockade of the 10-lane Zuba/Kubwa expressway.

Ibrahim wrote from Adisa Estate, Abuja ([email protected])