As the Federal Capital Territory Administration (FCTA) battles to maintain the Abuja master plan, the territory seems to be plagued by daunting over population and rising number of slums which LEADERSHIP SUNDAY has continued to highlight. This week, CHIKA OKEKE focuses on Garki Village.
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For Mrs Janet Etsu, a mother of five, living in Garki villlage is not the best that life could have offered but since it was her ancestral home, she could not change the hand of the clock. She said, “I am a native of Gbagyi and married to a Gbagyi man. We have five children, the first attends a government secondary school while the rest are in primary school. Ever since I married my husband, we have lived in this village which I believed was our ancestral home.
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I am a petty trader while my husband is a farmer though I assist with the farm work. We work very hard to take care of our children. Despite the challenges, God has always been by our side. Gbagyis are very hardworking. When the government wanted to relocate the seat of government to the present Federal Capital Territory (FCT), the panel agreed that the entire residents (Gbagyis) outside the new FCT will be relocated. And when the FCT was finally established, some of the natives were displaced. The former FCT minister, Mallam Nasiru El Rufai was bent on maintaining the Abuja master plan.
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This he did by ensuring that all illegal structures within the FCT were demolished. Since we are the natives, we insisted that before our houses will be demolished, another settlement will be built for us. The administration accepted and built a camp at Apo. When the site was completed, they handed us the keys to the houses while others couldn`t get. Many of us were given one bedroom flat though we had large families. With that, my people grew angry and insisted that they will not relocate except the government gives them a befitting structure. We own Abuja therefore we do not deserve the type of treatment that they are showing us. It is unfair for people to take over our land while the real owners wallow in abject poverty.
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Garki village is situated directly opposite Garki Model market along Ladoke Akintola Boulevard, Garki. While approaching the village, one could be lost in thought on why it was cited in such location. Investigations by our reporter revealed that the houses have been marked for demolition. Strong odour emanating from blocked drainages and uncleared refuse pervade the environment.
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The entire locality is littered with dirty objects, broken and discarded empty pet bottles. Whenever it rains, walking through the village seems a drag since the access roads are untarred. The number of people living in the village is alarming. The numerous houses are forever overlapping one another such that hardly can anybody spot an empty plot of land supposed for farmingor being farmed.
Despite the serene environment at Apo, the proposed resettlement camp for Garki natives, the Gbagyi’s, on whose claimed land the estate was built have refused to relocate to the area. They argue that the one bedroom flat is neither adequate nor enough to accommodate their extended families and that there also, is no space for farming since majority of them are farmers.
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A Gbagyi landlord at Garki village who preferred anonymity condemned government’s resettlement plans saying that the building did not conform with their initial properties. “I have two wives and many children but FCTA only offered us one bedroom apartment. The house is too small to contain my household. It is impossible for me to relocate to Apo resettlement site. There is no space for farming. I depend so much on my agricultural produce, so, how can I feed my families without farming. If FCTA wants us to relocate, they should be ready to provide a befitting house and a good space for farming activities. He insisted that
Federal Government did not consult them before taking charge of their land for the establishment of the FCT.
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On whether he received a key to the new house, he said, “I received my key but I rented it out because it was too small for my household. Some of my relatives were not that fortunate as they were not given keys to any house though shortlisted, while some officials at FCDA sold out the buildings and allocated some to faceless persons.
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At Apo, the proposed resettlement camp for indigenous Garki residents, it was discovered that the buildings have been occupied mainly by settlers who most of whom admitted that the houses were either rented or sold out to them by Garki natives.
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A competent source and resident of Apo resettlement camp that spoke also on condition of anonymity claimed; “The Gbagyi natives in Garki are greedy. Government built houses at Apo resettlement site and handed the keys over to them. Many received the keys to their houses and sold them out while others rented theirs to other settlers. Even after the relocation, they refused to vacate from Garki village. Some were given either of the one, two or three-bedroom houses depending on the size of their families. Some fathers even used the opportunity of the scramble to secure houses for their little children to such an extent that they collected more than one house just for a family. Since their case is still in court, government should hasten up and send them away from the village. The village is very dirty and it makes Abuja look dirty because it is located at the heart of the FCT. If they fail to leave the village, the government should forcefully evict them because it no longer belongs to them”.
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When LEADERSHIP visited the Sa’Peyi of Garki, Alhaji Usman Nga Kupi, he declined comment saying that “the case is still in the court. We cannot issue statements when issues are still in court. You should wait while we try to sort out things between the government and our community. Whatever weaere able to resolve, we will get across to you and that is after the case must have been concluded in the court. You would have written to me first demanding that I grant you an interview before embarking on this trip because before you left your house, you must have prepared. So, give us time so that we can sort out some things with the government. Please don’t be offended”, he said in consolatory tone.
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Last year, the immediate past Senator representing FCT, Senator Sidi-Ali, had said during an interview with newsmen that he sued the FCT Administration over what he perceived as lack of transparency and element of fraud in the resettlement exercise. According to him, “I think basically I had to go to court to seek an injunction in order to avoid violence, bloodshed and crisis in our new federal capital. You are aware that 34 years ago, the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) was declared and there was a policy that all villages within these 8,000 square metres be settled outside the FCT. Ab-initio the government failed to settle these people outside the territory.
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This programme started almost four years ago and I am aware that a lot of budgetary provisions has been made for this resettlement exercise. But what we have on ground today is carelessness from the authorities concerned with resettling these people- the Federal Capital Territory Administration (FCTA). There was never a time they took this issue seriously. There has been no transparency and there is element of fraud in this resettlement exercise. Today, they want to use this mistake of theirs to kill the few boys we have in Garki village. I felt I should stop it by all means. We have a committee in place that has been working with the authorities of the FCT. They enumerated those who are to be resettled and when the actual resettlement commenced there were flaws here and there that need to be corrected in terms of either omission of names of those earlier captured or inappropriate allocation of houses. Some people who were shortlisted for four-bedroom houses, were given one-bedroom instead.
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In February, the FCT Minister, Senator Bala Mohammed through his press secretary issued a statement that work on the Apo resettlement site was 95 per cent completed. According to him, “this was the highest recorded by the administration since the commencement of the resettlement programme. We undertook the construction of 877 resettlement houses at the Apo Resettlement Site”.
FCT Development Control’s Stand On Illegal Structures
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The deputy director, monitoring and enforcement, Abuja Management Metropolitan Council (AMMC), Mr. Tukur Bakori, while speaking with LEADERSHIP SUNDAY, said the government is trying hard to contain the existing village- the original settlement, from expanding. “We are everywhere and are moving everywhere but we cannot be everywhere at the same time.
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The unfortunate thing is that people tend to ignore our advice to desist from buying lands from the local chiefs. What the local chiefs always tell whoever comes to them for a land is that they are paying royalty to them not that they are selling the lands out. So whenever the administration comes asking them to leave, there is always that understanding between them.
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The chiefs are becoming more enlightened on the issue of sale of these lands. They have continued to indulge in the royalty collections from the illegal developers. We had a meeting with the chief of Galadima village and he said that he wants us to come and intervene, because they can no longer control the illegal developers.
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Let me tell you why they cannot control them; because criminals have taken over the villages in the guise of land speculators, so some of them come with a lot of intimidation. When they want to drive them out, they will begin to make trouble, that the chiefs cannot drive them out. We are setting up a programme on how to address some of these issues. Even in the cities, some developers build on people’s plot of land without a letter of allocation let alone in the villages where the control is not that effective. The original settlement within the capital city like Garki village is an example.
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It will be very difficult to control the existing slums in FCT. This is because, whenever one is demolished, within a space of three months, such building will be re-erected without due approval. This herculean task can only be addressed through a mass housing scheme.