By Daniel Tyokua
A widow, Kauna Bitrus on Tuesday wept freely as officials of the Federal Capital Territory Ministerial Task Force Team on City Sanitation resumed dismantling of illegal motor parks and shanties at Zuba a suburb of Abuja.
The widow who said her husband died and left her with seven children, sales under a makeshift inside one of the illegal motor parks pulled down by the taskteam.
She said, “my husband died and left me with seven children, I sale here to feed them as well as pay their school fees, I don’t have money to pay for a good shop inside Zuba market” She said.
Other petty traders who were visibly angry too, said the exercise was meant to bring sanity in the area, but lamented that there was no other means for them to survive.
Felicia Okoro stated that, “Clearing of the area is good but we don’t have another place to sale and survive”.
Officials of the team led by its chairman Ikharo Attah, in the wee hours of the day stormed the popular Dankogi area on Zuba-Kaduna expressway and demolished the illegal motor parks which the traders operate in makeshifts, constituting security threat to the people.
Fielding questions from journalists after the exercise tagged ‘clean up’ the chairman said removing of the structures was in line with the directives of the minister of the FCT Malam Muhammad Bello to maintain sanity in the city.
Attah explained that the exercise followed the Minister of FCT’s directives on the need to reclaim the inter-change in Zuba being abused by traders and motorists.
He regretted that the inter-change has been taken over by shanties in the name of trading, causing grilock and nuisance.
The chairman stated that, “The minister is not comfortable with the abuse of the plan of the inter-change which is supposed to be green but is converted into a transport hub that is gradually becoming a shanty and criminals’ den, the area has also become a plantain market.
“We are removing the illegal structures to reclaim Zuba because some criminals are coming to the spot, so the exercise today is multi dimensional, one is to reclaim the Zuba inter-change, two is to remove shanties where criminals hide, three is to free traffic coming from Kubwa-Dei-Dei axis that connect Zuba and Zuma rock axis on Abuja-Kaduna express way”
On sustaining the exercise, Hassan Ogbole of the Department of Development Control, said after the clean up, the Department of Parks and Recreation is expected to take over the area for proper management.
“We have done our part it is left for the Department of Parks and Recreation to take over the management of the area, is either they come in as a department, or hand it over to a contractor that will manage it”
