The Federal Capital Territory Administration (FCTA), has said that indigenous communities must be resettled if the territory wanted to get rid of slums within the city centre.
Alhaji Mukhtar Galadima, FCTA Director, Department of Development Control, stated this shortly after a demolition exercise at Guzape District on Friday in Abuja.
Galadima stressed that resettling such communities had become necessary due to the huge population growth usually recorded in such areas.
He said that many people would be resettled in 2021, following efforts by the current administration to relocate communities.
“The Federal Capital Development Authority saddled with this responsibility is up and doing to see that such communities are relocated.
“Already, the authority has initiated moves to relocate communities such as Jabi-Yakubu to Shere Galuri. The process of relocating others has commenced, so hopefully, more communities will be permanently relocated next year.
“As long as these indigent communities are still staying within the city precincts, there will always be other Nigerians that normally hang around them and this leads to expansion of such communities.
“For us to get the city of our dreams, we have to resettle some of these indigenous communities. Once we do that, then we can get a city as envisaged by our founding fathers,” Galadima said.
The FCTA boss further said that more than 100 shanties and illegal structure had been pulled down with 100 structures at the Kpaduma area of Guzape district alone.
According to him, the demolition is part of the continuous exercise to rid the city of slums and shanties as the FCTA has been in talks with communities to remove illegal structures and shanties within the city centre.
“This negotiation has been going on with indigenous communities before the EndSARS protest and that is why we were able to move to Utako, Jabi, Daki-Biyu and other indigenous communities,’’ he said.
Galadima said that the FCTA had to step down the exercise during the EndSARS protests, but had resumed and moved to Guzape.
