Group Condemns Demolitions Of Alleged Approved Structures In FCT

Human Rights Writers Association of Nigeria (HURIWA) expressed displeasure with the Federal Capital Territory Administration’s (FCTA) demolition of alleged approved structures in Abuja.

The group also decried the practice of abandoning the impoverished on the streets with no options of relocation or compensation to assist them in finding alternative places to live as human beings.

HURIWA’s National Coordinator, Comrade Emmanuel Onwubiko, said in a statement that while the government is required to prevent environmental issues such as floods caused by unscrupulous house developers blocking water channels without government approval, he described the alleged taking of people’s roofs from their heads as callous.

The group noted that the Minister, Mohammed Musa Bello, should eradicate what it calls ‘perennial virus of wickedness’ in some of the enforcers of housing and city planning laws, because of their lack empathy by failing to provide relocation alternative for hundreds of affected Abuja residents.

According to HURIWA, Abuja is the only place in the world, where those who have government privileges to loot public funds erect mansions in the city centres, which are unoccupied but almost 65 per cent of civil servants and teachers working even for the FCT Ministry live in Nasarawa or the Niger States from where they commune to work daily.

The group also said it was saddening that some of the buildings demolished by the FCTA were done for alleged political reasons.

“When poor masses can’t find affordable accommodation, they are prone to falling victims to fraudsters, who build makeshift huts on government unapproved lands and when the officials come for demolitions they are treated like animals rather than as victims of dupes and 419 house owners, who most time bribe FCTA staff to look the other way for a few months before, striking when the unfortunate victims have settled in”, it said.