The Minister of the Federal Capital Territory, Nyesom Wike, has vowed to demolish buildings illegally constructed within the country’s capital in a bid to bring it back to its original master plan.
The Minister assumed office on Monday after he took his oath of office alongside 44 other newly appointed Ministers of the Federal Republic of Nigeria.
Speaking during his maiden press briefing, he stated that houses that had been built to distort the Abuja masterplan and those built on green areas will be demolished no matter whose property it is.
According to him, the President has directed him to hit the ground running and gave him the matching order to bring the capital back to what it’s supposed to be.
He said, “All those people who are distorting the Masterplan of Abuja, too bad. If you know you have built where you are not supposed to build, it will go down.
“Be you a Minister of anywhere, be you an ambassador, if you know you have developed where you were not supposed to develop, your house must go down.
“Those who have taken over the green area to build, sorry, our parks must come back, the green areas must come back. If you hate green, you must hate yourself.
“Those doing land racketeering, that period is over and those government gave CofO and they refuse to develop and have become land speculators, the land is gone, I am going to revoke them.
“Those who don’t pay ground rent, we will not notify them to do so, but I will not be tired to revoke.
“All those who have left their houses to be shanties for criminals, uncompleted buildings that criminals have taken over, the government will take it back. All those uncompleted buildings defacing the city, particularly Maitama, Asokoro, and Wuse, we will take them back.”
On security, Wike said that he would work with all security agencies in the FCT and provide them with the necessary tools and logistics to rid the city of all criminal elements.
According to him, FCT is supposed to be the safest city in the country, but that is no longer the case.
“My short-term priority for FCT is to tackle the rising insecurity. For security, we will provide the necessary tools and logistics to security agencies to do their job. When we do this, I won’t want to hear any excuses from them. We want results.”
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