Residents of ECOWAS Estate in Abuja, Nigeria’s capital have vowed to block access roads passing through their estate to the 55-hectare estate and other adjoining estates in Katampe Extension, Abuja in other to avert security threat in the estate.
On behalf of the residents in Abuja, the Chairman of the Estate Association, Dr Austin Maho, said the decision was as a result of the incessant insecurity, theft and environmental nuisances in the area.
According to him, “The Minister visited the estate after a series of petitions on this problem on the 22nd of August 2021. He saw things for himself and he ordered that all development in the estate should stop.” Building plan approval should be halted, and if the 55-hectare estate does not have its own road leading to it, it is an illegal estate.
“The point is that the 55-hectare estate and other adjoining estates should find an alternative route to their estates, which they don’t know what to do.
“What they have been doing is to calve out the plot of land given to them as an estate and sell it to members of the public. They don’t want to spend their money; they were using it to generate billions of dollars for themselves and didn’t care about anyone else’s comfort.
“This is the fight we are fighting. This is why we decided to block their existence to force them to do the right thing, create their own assessment. We’ve had to deal with a slew of social and physical challenges, as well as increased theft on the estate.”
“Theft has increased over 100 percent, and they have turned the whole estate into a slum.
“ECOWAS estate was designed and built as a diplomatic estate. If you come into the estate, you see that it is gated. Am I the one that fenced the gate around? Am I the one that did the internal roads? Some of us that bought property within the ECOWAS estate bought it under the belief that we were buying a gated estate. Nobody can tell us that ECOWAS estate is not a gated estate, so the right thing must be done. The reign of impunity by these developers must be put to an end and we are going to confront them, even if it means going to court. If they refuse to adhere to administrative processes, we will take them to court and tell the world that anybody subscribing to the estate should know that there is no road to the estate.”
He went further to explain that, “Development Control from what they came to the estate, and they have been seeing it. It is not that they are seeing it for the first time. The action we have taken today makes it evident that you cannot have any existing estate become a thorough fear of an estate with 55 hectares or more. You begin to imagine the size of 55 hectares. In my earlier talk with the press, I stated categorically that about 2000 workers pass through our estate to go and work in the 55 hectares. This is the number of trucks and articulated vehicles that pass through our estate on a daily basis. We in the ECOWAS estate are human beings. They should respect us and respect our dignity, and we have the right to leave our lives in a peaceful environment. From 6 am in the morning till midnight, you have vehicular traffic, dust everywhere, and they destroy the internal roads in the estate. At the same time, we have it on record that this 55-hectare estate and other adjoining estates have their own roads. Provision was made for their own roads when the allocation was given. Added to that, they must have done an environmental impact assessment and they must have signed a MoU with FCTA before the allocation was given to them”, he further hinted.
Dominica Nwabufo
