The Director, Federal Capital Territory (FCT) Department of Development Control, Muktar Galadima has warned allottees of undeveloped lands in service areas to develop them or risk revocation.
Galadima gave this warning Monday when he led an enforcement team to remove shanties at Jabi District in Abuja.
He said the Department has received complaint over occupation of an allocated land and after several meetings with the indigenous community revolved to clear all shanties in Jabi District
The Director while decrying the rising rate of shanties in the Federal Capital City, said “the issue of shanties has become a kind of heaven for the people of under world which we have to remove them.
“We have two issues attached to that; one is the issue of shanties and then secondly, we received a complain over occupation on allocated land.
“If you recall towards the end of 2019, we carried out similar exercise at Gwarinpa and today we are in Jabi and we will continue like that from one District to another where we have high concentration and or presence of some of these shanties of illegal structures.”
Galadima explained that as part of efforts to ensure smooth exercise, indigenous communities would be resettled permanently to enable land allottees develop them.
He disclosed that Development Control will liaise with the Department of Resettlement and Compensation to come up with modalities on how to go about the resettlement of the indigenous communities.
“And then the allottees of those plots will be advise to move in and develop their land and failure to do that we will recommend revocation of those undeveloped lands”.
Earlier, the Chief of Jabi, Yakubu Auta appealed to the FCT Department of Development Control to give them more time to relocate to the new area.
The Monarch also called on the Federal Capital Territory Administration (FCTA) to ensure speedy conclusion of their resettlement exercise to enable them resume their normal activities.
“We relied on these shanties to feed our families, pay our children school fees and provide them with basic necessities of life. All our lands have been taken over by the FCT Administration and we are left with no piece of land to farm”, he stated.
James Kwen, Abuja
