Tears, anguish as Zone 8, Lugbe crumbles under FCT’S bulldozers

While the exercise lasted, confusion and pandemonium was the order of the day as residents whose houses were affected tried to salvage whatever was left of their property before they gave way to the bulldozers, while those who could not bear the emotional turmoil simply burst into tears as carpenters were making frantic efforts to […]

While the exercise lasted, confusion and pandemonium was the order of the day as residents whose houses were affected tried to salvage whatever was left of their property before they gave way to the bulldozers, while those who could not bear the emotional turmoil simply burst into tears as carpenters were making frantic efforts to remove some of the roofing sheets before the heavy duty machines descend on them. While the bulldozers bared their fangs on the houses, some of the residents, in a last minute effort to secure their property from being looted by hoodlums and miscreants, hurriedly engaged the services of wheel barrow pushers also known in local parlance as “mai barrow” to ferry their belongings to safety.

Lugbe, located along the Nnamdi Azikwe International Airport road, has, since the era of former FCT Minister, Malam Nasir el-Rufai, escaped demolition, even though it was among the illegal squatters settlements earmarked in 2006 for demolition. In the ongoing exercise that commenced last Friday, no fewer than 500 houses, including churches gave way to the two bulldozers mobilised to the site for the exercise.

Although many residents described the zone as being under siege for a long time, because it had earlier been earmarked for demolition by the administration of former FCT minister Aliyu Modibbo, most residents took the warning signal for granted and continued to erect shacks and shanties. However, the ongoing expansion of the Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport road further necessitated the demolition of the sprawling slum.

However, as the German Construction firm, Julius Berger Construction Company Limited, which is currently handling the airport road ten-lane expansion project mobilised to the area, residents were served a removal notice on August 19, 2009 and were given the last warning last Thursday preceding the commencement of the demolition exercise.

While speaking to the Sunday Trust, one of the victims who claimed that his brother’s house was among the ones demolished, Bello Umar said “as you can see, they have rendered us homeless, there is no place and the duration of time given to us to move our things is so short. We all feel bad, nowhere to go, we all stay here”.

Even when he admitted that the road expansion which led to the demolition of their various houses is a developmental effort by the government, the young man, who gave his name as Kabiru Usman, noted that the FCT administration ought to make provision for residents whenever such displacement would be carried out. He added that “if the government says this is an illegal settlement, it could be true but most of the people settling here are still there staff and so they should be able to have built staff quarters all over the Federal Capital Territory for their staff to stay because most of the staff that work in the Federal Secretariat, House of Assembly live here. It is so sad.”

However, the Deputy Director of the Department of Development Control, Alhaji Hamsa Madaki Tahir, who led men of the department to the site and a detachment of Mobile Police told Sunday Trust that the area had been allocated to the Abuja Technology Village and Ring Road C.

He revealed that the zone was an illegal settlement that belongs to the non-indigenous squatters who, he said, just came to the site, built houses and stayed, reiterating that the structures were marked in 2006 for demolition.

The Deputy Director also said that the residents had been going to courts to appeal the demolition notice, asking for more time, adding that they were actually given more time but that they did not vacate the place.

He stressed that the structures were again marked in 2008 for removal, saying “this area, there is going to be an interchange and this high tension wire had to be removed due to the road expansion and that is the reasons that triggered this exercise.”

Alhaji Madaki maintained that there would be no compensation for the affected residents as they were illegal settlers, adding that they were given enough notice to remove their properties and vacate the place.