bBy Pius Awunah
The Federal Capital Territory Development Authority (FCDA),leading security agencies, has dismantled a criminal hideout and seized 20 vehicles in a sweeping operation targeting illegal settlements in the heart of Abuja.
The city’s Development Control Department, Security Services, and Vehicle Inspection Office (VIO) cleared an area described as a major threat to the capital’s security and aesthetic standards.
Officials say the exercise, which involved removing illicit structures, impounding vehicles, and seizing weapons, will be followed by a “mop-up” operation to ensure criminal elements do not return.
“We’ve been able to identify a location that somehow poses a lot of challenge to the city’s security and the city’s aesthetic quality, and we have been able to clear the menace and even chased out some of the people of questionable character,” said Director of Development Control, Mukhtar Galadima.
“But we are not ending today, we are coming back tomorrow to do what we call a mop-up exercise”,he added.
Galadima addressed concerns about the eviction of long-term occupants, clarifying that their residence was illegal and the site had always been intended for another use.
“They’ve been residing illegally, so there is nothing we can do about it but to chase them out of the place.
Moreover, this place has been designated for another use. It is not supposed to accommodate them, but they were just occupying illegally,” he stated.
He disclosed the area is slated for a new transportation corridor: “In the plan of Abuja, where we are standing now is a proposed road corridor that has been designated as the Inner Northern Expressway, just like what we have as Goodluck-Ebele Jonathan Expressway.”
Moving forward, the administration plans to ensure cleared spaces are quickly put to their designated uses, insisting “every time we clear, we are going to commit it to a particular thing … we are going to take possession of that particular space.”
Galadima stressed that the city’s residents must cooperate, even as some claim their rights are being infringed upon: “We seek their cooperation because in the process of sanitising the city, some people will claim that we have infringed on their rights, whereas we have to make the city secure and cleaner. So that is the essence of the exercise.”
