The Minister of the Federal Capital Territory, FCT, Nyesom Wike, has ordered the demolition of the Nuwalege community along the Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport, Abuja.
The FCTA director of developmental control, Mukhtar Galadima, disclosed this during a community and citizen engagement on Tuesday in Abuja.
According to him, the order followed a request by the Nigerian Air Force to develop the land for a presidential fleet.
Mr Galadima said, “about a month ago, the authority of the Nigerian Air Force wrote to the honourable minister on their needs and desire to remove this village, because it is part of the presidential fleet plots.
“So, the minister, in his wisdom, requested them to allow the FCT administration to handle it, because it’s the responsibility of FCT administration. The Nigerian Air Force approached the Department of Development Control on their desire.
“So, as part of our responsibility, we have to do what you call community and citizen engagement, which is why we are here today to discuss with the community and to tell them of our intention, because it will be unfair to just bring the machine here and start removing their houses.
“So, we visited the chiefs at his palace to meet him, and we told him our reason for coming to this place today.”
Speaking on the number of houses that will be demolished, Mr Galadima hinted that about 150 to 200 houses with additional commercial stores that are attached to these houses will be removed.
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On whether compensation will be paid to the affected natives, he said: “We will discuss with the Air Force, because obviously discussion behind the scene indicates that some forms of compensation were paid, but we have to be certain that this compensation actually were paid, and also who was really given this compensation.”
“We are going to conduct further investigation between FCT administration, that’s the Department of Resettlement and Compensation, as well as the Nigerian Air Force and find out if compensation has been paid, to who and When?.
“And then we will discuss with our colleague at the Department of Resettlement and Compensation whether at any point in time, there was any compensation that ascertained their claims as regard to the number of structures and people that are going to be affected by this expansion project.”
“There are certain things that we have to look into with consideration like the security, because obviously, this part of some of this settlement is where you have some of these people of the underworld trying to disguise and hide.
“And looking at this, Air Force formation, which is the presidential fleet, is too close , for this thing to co-habit. So we will see if there is that urgent desire to remove part of this community, and we will do it.
“So, we have to do some community engagement. It is not the entire community because we have gone around and we have seen the areas affected by the presidential fleet plot and the areas that are outside that plot,” Mr Galadima added.
(NAN)
