Leadership (Abuja)
Catherine Agbo
26 August 2009
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I am very happy that the FCT officials have decided to come and clear these areas. These people have been a cause for concern for us that live around here. With this, I am sure the crime rate here would reduce. I say so because most of the boys you see around here are idle. They do not have any known source of livelihood, yet they live here among us and spend money which nobody knows the source".
That was Mr. Moses Danladi commending the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) officials over their decision to sanitise the FCT and rid it of squalor settlements and shanties.
The FCT, in furtherance of its mandate to keep the territory clean, recently embarked on sanitation of the city during which went to various areas within the territory, including areas that had been previously visited and sanitized
The sanitation team which comprised the Abuja Environmental Protection Board (AEPB), Directorate of Road Transport Services (DRTS), armed police men, staff of the Social Development Secretariat and a detachment of the Peace Corps were at Area 1, around the Old Federal Secretariat, Garki Model Market, Julius Beggar Junction and Mabushi district.
The sanitation, according to AEPB director, Dr Abubakar Shehu Yabo was to clear areas that were fast being overtaken by traders, to phase out okada riders who had already been outlawed but were fast returning to the city, particularly around Area 1 and to ensure that no beggar remains on the streets of Abuja.
In Area 1 on the first outing, hard drugs dens were demolished. Traders and hawkers on the road were also cleared. A section beside Dunamis Church which was fast becoming a full fledged market was also demolished and the traders evacuated. Motorcycles belonging to okada riders were also seized by the VIO officials who were also part of the team.
The team moved to Garki market where traders who had remained on the streets after the market, which was hitherto locked, had been opened. Traders on the streets had their wares seized by the sanitation officials.
Yabo said all traders whose goods had been seized would be tried in the mobile court and fined accordingly.
"We have a mobile court that sits everyday except on Sundays so they can come and identify their goods and be tried and fined. However, if they do not show up for too long, as is our usual practice, we would seek the permission of the court to auction the goods" he said.
Similarly, beggars found on the streets as well as those found in the mosques were arrested and taken to rehabilitation centres from where they would be repatriated.
A food peddler at Area 1, Comfort Dike, lamented that government was trying to put residents out of business. She said, "What the government is doing to us is not fair at all. Most of the people you see around here engaged in one trade or the other are people who are well educated. There are no jobs and we have decided to be useful to ourselves by doing this business to keep body and soul together. AEPB keeps coming here to harass us and seize our properties. I think what they are trying to do is to make sure that they make Abuja a place for only big men like themselves".
Another resident, Ifeanyi Enyi, said, "we are not stopping them from sanitizing Abuja, but what we are saying is that they should allow people who are doing business to do their business in peace. They keep harassing traders as if they are the ones responsible for the dirt and crime. Everybody cannot afford to pay for a shop in the plaza because of the nature of their business".
The sanitation team, in its determination to keep the city clean, revisited Area 1 three days later and, to the chagrin of the officials, the illegal structures that were removed had been re-erected with normal business activities going on.
The structures were removed and some of them, including tables and seats used by the street traders as well as motor tyres littered all over the place, were burnt.
Reacting to questions on why enforcement has not been tightened in the already cleared areas to prevent reoccurrence, the Director of AEPB, Dr Abubakar Shehu Yabo, said that the areas are notorious spots for beggars and urchins, which makes it difficult and dangerous to post people to the areas for fear of their lives, explaining that even those who are not directly involved in the exercise, such as street sweepers, become scapegoats when enforcement officials carry out their job and leave.
"Eeven now, these women sweeping the streets are already complaining to us that the people whose goods were seized are threatening to descend on them as soon as we leave. The only thing we can do is to make sure that we continue to sanitise no matter how many times until we realise our goal, which is to keep Abuja clean".
The sanitation team was also at the Julius Berger junction where angry food peddlers, whose food had been destroyed and other properties burnt, hurled stones at the sanitation team.
One of them, a 300 level student in one of the universities in the country lamented: "I am here because ASUU is on strike. If not for the strike, I would be in school now. The government has refused to pay attention to important issues of national interest, but rather concerns itself with things that are of less importance. Tell the government to meet the demands of ASUU so that students can go back to school. I and my sisters are here helping our mother out with her food business which is what she uses to train us in school. Would they rather have us turn to prostitution like our contemporaries? She submitted".
At Julius Berger, beggars who had turned bridges to residential abodes were promptly arrested by the team. The team proceeded to Mabushi where shanty structures reign supreme. Over 2000 people live in the Mabushi scavengers' village, in an environment that is not fit for human habitation.
The scavengers' village in Mabushi was demolished. Shanties harbouring hard drug dealers, suspected criminals, urchins and prostitutes were also demolished.
FCT minister, Muhammed Adamu Aliero, announced that the FCT administration would soon embark on extensive demolition of illegal structures in high brow areas of the city, including Maitama and Wuse II.
"There are 50 different buildings erected without title documents or development control approval in these high brow areas, and they must give way because we are respecters of law and due process in the Federal Capital Territory," he said.
The minister lamented that such action constitutes a high indiscipline and lack of respect for constituted authority, which he emphasized is unacceptable to any right thinking government.
Special Assistant to the FCT minister on media and public affairs, Mr. Abdullahi Idris Zuru, commenting on the exercise, said that the minister had decided to revisit the sites earlier as the shacks earlier destroyed had been rebuilt because they serve as hideouts for criminals to carry out their activities.
He stated that the FCT administration was not resting on its oars until all the people that were removed as well as the shanties are driven out, adding that Abuja has no room for people whose activities pose serious security, health and environmental hazards.
Zuru maintained that as long as the people continue to return to those areas, government would not relent until Abuja is given a face befitting its status as a metropolitan city. He advised all those who complained that government was depriving them of doing business to go the areas that had been designated for such business activities, as he assured indigenes in the areas visited that government was aware of their existence in those areas, and that they would not be asked to move until government's resettlement plans for them are complete.
Director of Road Traffic Services (DRTS/VIO), Major A.S. Adamu (rtd), said they were involved in the exercise to rid areas of abandoned vehicles and remove and arrest okada riders, adding that even though they had lost some officers in the process, they would not relent in their efforts to sanitise Abuja.
The minister solicited the cooperation and understanding of all residents of the capital territory in order to rid the city of all illegal structures and environmental nuisance.
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