The Federal Capital Territory Administration (FCTA) has cautioned Abuja natives against renting out their economic trees and plantations to scavengers and operators of ‘Pantekars’ in the territory.
Mr. Ikharo Attah, Senior Special Assistant on Monitoring, Inspection, and Enforcement to the FCT Minister issue the warning when he led a cleanup exercise in Mabushi and Jahi areas of Abuja, on Wednesday.
Attah said that it was unacceptable for owners of undeveloped plots of land or buildings under construction to rent out their properties for illegal land use different from what was in the master plan.
He warned that henceforth, the FCT Administration would report the owner of the property to the police if the criminality spiked.
According to him, “we will report to the Minister to take the necessary actions.
” We are removing scavengers’ shanties, around Mabushi area, close to Orji Uzor Kalu’s House.
“The FCT Commissioner of Police, Sunday Babaji, advised the FCT Minister, Malam Muhammad Bello, on the need to actually clear this area in order to make this area more secure.
“Consequently, the minister directed us to clear all scavengers in this area, just by Orji Uzor Kalu’s house, we are clearing many shanties and scavengers’ dens.
“It is part of our agenda to clear the city and today we found someone’s national identity card and international passport, that was probably stolen.”
He said the area was a high brow one and it won’t be right for scavengers to stay there .
“We will be handing them over to appropriate agencies to locate the owners of the identity card and international passport,”he said.
The minister’s aide decried that cashew plantations were now criminals hideouts in Abuja.
” The cashew trees are no longer economic trees again, they are insecurity trees, because whenever we go out, we see criminals hiding under the trees.
“They have become safe havens for criminals.
” We have already told the indigenous people that any cashew plantation that is rented out to scavengers, when we get there we won’t spare the cashews trees.
“This is because, we must touch every illegal structure in the plantation and remove them.
” If anybody rent out his property to illegal occupants, we condemn it totally and if we get the owner, we will report the owner to the police.
” If the criminality is too much,we will report to the minister to take the necessary action.”
Also, the Director of Abuja Environmental Protection Board (AEPB), Mr Osilamah Braimoh, said there was no going back on the decision that all scavenger’s must move to dump sites to do their business.
Represented by the Assistant Director, AEPB, Mr Kaka Bello, said that it was unacceptable that residential areas were being misused.
He said that accumulation of wastes was hazardous to the health of people in that area.
“The implications to the environment it is degrading the environment and hazardous to the health of the people in the area.
“The scavengers’ dens that are being removed today had been removed severally, but they keep coming back.
” In the past, AEPB asked them to vacate the area and ensure they use the dump site, for all this their activities but unfortunately they have refused to vacate.
” We have no choice but to remove them, these are residential areas but they have occupied these places and some of the challenges is accumulation of waste and others,”he said.
He said that anyone who want to do the business of waste recycling they must do it at the dump sites in Abuja.
“We have had series of meetings with them and told them that if they must operate, they must use the dump site and we have over 90 hectres of land which they can use, which they can use for recycling,” he added.
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