The Federal Capital Territory (FCT), administration has vowed to prosecute developers raising illegal structures which were distorting the Abuja Master Plan.
“The illegal structures built largely on waterways are causing damage to lives and property in the FCT. We won’t accept that,” Mr Suleiman Abdurahmeed, Acting Coordinator and Director of Administration and Finance, Abuja Metropolitan Management Council (AMMC,) told newsmen on Monday in Abuja.
He said that the incessant flooding in some parts of Abuja and environs had called for emergency attention from relevant authorities of the federal capital, saying that the assessment tour would provide the authorities with first hand information toward taking remedial steps.
“The essence of this exercise is to go round and appraise the damage caused by the flood; we want to assess the extent of the damage so as to determine the remedial measures and ways to forestall any recurrence”, NAN quoted him as saying.
“The situation is an emergency situation that deserves an emergency attention also. Some of the problems we discovered were that some of the flood plains have been converted to use by illegal developers.
“We intend to immediately recover those flood plains because if you block the flood plains and you do not allow water to pass, naturally water will create its own way.
“The second problem within the city is the drains; we need to distill them because they are blocked by expended plastic materials.
“We have started already and we will open up those drains so that water can have easy passage. We have brought machines to drain the water and you can see that the whole place is clear.
“So, we are going to repeat this type of exercise in Jabi, Utako and other parts of the city,” he said.
On the flooding in Lokogoma Estate, Abdurahmeed described the situation as “a humongous problem” that could only be addressed with caution.
He said that the Department of Development Control slowed down the pace of demolition of illegal structures due to heavy rains witnessed in recent days.
“You know that Lokogoma is a humongous problem. We are tackling it gradually.
“We have been removing all illegal structures there, but there are other ones we need to remove and you know the rains are here, but we will continue.
“To tackle the situation more drastically, we have resolved that when we removed the illegal structures, we may also charge the illegal developers to court because they are causing damage to property and life,” he said.
