The officials of the Nigerian Federal Capital Territory Administration (FCTA) on Tuesday, ordered some developers of an ongoing estate in the Gaduwa area, a suburb of the nation’s capital to stop work on the site over encroachment.
The Director, of the FCT Department of Development Control, Murktar Galadima, who led other senior officials of the department on the exercise, said the developer didn’t adhere to the plan earlier approved for him, and extended the work to the green area.
He said despite the ‘stop work ‘ order, after marking the illegal structures, the developer failed to comply with the several notices served on him.
Galadima disclosed that the administration would not allow developers to flout the Abuja master plan in the name of development in the city.
The director also ordered another developer on Oladipo Diya Road, still within the Gaduwa area to stop work over an unapproved development.
Galadima said: “There is a large encroachment of 33metres here, we gave them notice, we marked the structure and we served them all the relevant notices but they failed to comply with our notices, because expectedly when we serve you notice, are to stop until all investigations are concluded.
“It is what we call +688 which is meant for the recreational park but then, they encroached on some certain amount of spaces. But since they are contesting our decision, we have called surveyors to re-investigate the whole site because most likely there is a shift on the ground from the original space allocated so we can confirm. People should not go beyond their boundary, and they should always build or develop with what is in line with what has been approved for them”
On his part, the Project manager of the site, Engr Chidi Godwin, alleged that there was approval given to them by the officials of the FCTA.
He acknowledged that Private and FCTA surveyors carried out the exercise separately.
“We are not going to contest the position of the FCT Administration after reviewing the survey”
Dominica Nwabufo
