Yesterday, in Bassa-Jiwa Village, situated near the Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport Abuja, no fewer than 350 structures were demolished by the FCT Administration.
Most of the demolished structures were residential buildings and shanties that were constructed on the right of way (ROW), under Train Bridge, and pedestrian crossing in and around the village off the Airport Road.
The Director of Development Control Department Murkhtar Galadima said the 350 structures removed were part of the 500 marked for demolition in the area.
He said:
“Before marking the structures, we came for sensitisation first, thereafter, we removed them.
“It is part of our regular exercises to sanitise the city, and in furtherance of the Nnamdi Azikiwe Airport expansion project being awarded by the Federal Executive Council.”
The Senior Special Assistant on Monitoring Inspection and Enforcement to the FCT Minister, Ikharo Attah, noted that the area has multiple levels of illegality, as underneath the main Train Bridge connecting the Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport is full of shanties and the whole community has turned into the shanty, and become a source of security threat.
He said:
“The whole community is imperfectly built, thereby defacing the area, as the community has been expanding extremely. Although good people are in the community, the bad ones have easy access to hide and commit havoc.
“Even the chief and some of the citizens agreed that Bassa-Jiwa needed to be cleaned, and did that while respecting some of the previous markings we had in the community for resettlement and compensation of some indigenous persons there, those were not touched, but several others were not spared,”
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