The Federal Capital Territory
Administration (FCTA) has marked for demolition a multi-million naira
complex belonging to a member of the New Peoples Democratic Party
(nPDP).
The owner of the complex, Senator Aisha
Jummai Al-Hassan, raised the alarm over the alleged plan to demolish the
complex at a news conference in Abuja yesterday.
Al-Hassan, the senator representing
Taraba North Senatorial District, said she had been given 48 hours on
Thursday to remove her A-Class Park located in the highbrow Maitama area
of Abuja.
Addressing journalists yesterday,
Al-Hassan traced the decision by the FCTA to demolish the complex to her
membership of the nPDP.
She said: “On the 26th of September
2013, in fulfillment of the PDP threat to deal with members of the
Baraje-led division of the PDP, a two-week notice to demolish the
A-class park and event centre was served on A-Class Events Management
Services Limited, and yesterday (Thursday), another notice, a 48-hour
notice dated 24th October 2013, was also issued.
“I am a free born citizen of Nigeria
whose rights to freedom of choice and association are guaranteed under
Chapter 4 of the Nigerian Constitution 1999 as amended.
“If because of the grievances that I
have against my party, the PDP, especially its leadership at state
level, I decided to belong to an aggrieved divide of the party led by
Alhaji Kawu Baraje, I see no reason why I or any member of the divide
should be witch-hunted or persecuted and many other Nigerians (park
owners and workers) punished.”
Al-Hassan said that in response to a
letter by the FCTA directing A-Class to vacate its location, the
management of A-Class park wrote to the FCT Minister, Senator Bala
Mohammed, urging him to allow the park to continue operation until such a
time that actual and physical development of the Maitama Transit Way
would commence.
The park, she said, also reminded
Mohammed of relevant sections of the allocation letter which said that
the allocation was pending the identification of an alternative site.
She said that the space for the park was
given to her when authorities of the FCTA discovered that the place
earlier allocated to her was encumbered.
She said: “By another letter reference
AMMC/P&R/S.500 dated 17th March 2010 from Park and Recreation
Department of the FCTA, approval was given to A-Class Events Management
Services Limited to develop and manage a park on a site measuring
approximately 3.0 hectares on the transit way corridor Maitama
District.”
She noted that one of the conditions in
the letter of allocation of plot 102 A00 was that the offer was for a
five-year period in the first instance, renewable after satisfactory
performance.
The lawmaker said it might interest
Nigerians to know that while she was being hounded and issued threats to
demolish A-Class Park, two other parks were given approval to operate
parks in the same area.
She noted that contrary to the promise
of an alternative site for A-Class Park, none was given “despite several
reminders to the minister by me personally and through my colleague and
brother, Senator Smart Adeyemi, the Chairman, Senate Committee on FCT.”
She added that the development of the Maitama Transit Way was yet to commence.
According to her, “the Maitama Transit
Way will only be developed and linked to the light rail lines when
completed, and everybody knows as fact that the light rail line project
that will go round the FCT with linkages to many transit ways within the
city is not anywhere near completion.
“If A-Class Park and Events Centre is
demolished with others on the transit ways as alleged by the FCTA, what
will the FCTA do with the space since development of the transit ways is
not even in contemplation now?”
The Taraba-born lawmaker lamented that
more than 200 employees at the highbrow park were about to lose their
means of livelihood.
She called on President Goodluck
Jonathan to intervene in the matter. “I am calling on him that he should
see what his officers are doing because whether it is development
control, whether it is FCTA, whether it is the minister or not, they are
all members of the executive that are doing this, and they are doing
this contrary to his vision of wanting to employ the Nigerian youths to
make them useful to themselves and to Nigeria.
“This single act of demolishing this
park, they are just hiding behind assertion that no people have been
building on transit ways. People have been building on corridors. Who
gave the people permission to build?
“If you are not authorised to be in a place in this FCT, will you stay one hour without being chased out by development control?
“They gave all the people, knowing full
well that these places are road corridors. Right now, why I am saying
that it is a case of witch-hunting and persecution is because I know for
a fact too that they are not ready now to develop this transit way.
“I know too as a legislator that no
money is given in the budget to develop this transit way. With due
respect to them, it is not true.
“They are not developing anything. They are just persecuting me.”
But the Federal Capital Territory
Administration (FCTA) yesterday said that its planned demolition of the
park no political undertone.
A statement by the Special Adviser
(Media) to the FCT Minister, Nosike Ogbuenyi, said that the Development
Control Department of the Abuja Metropolitan Management Council (AMMC)
over a month ago commenced the processes leading to the closure and
removal of all temporary recreational facilities situated on the public
transit ways within the Abuja Federal Capital City as the
Administration’s major road and railway projects were in progress.
It added that the planned demolition of the of the park was in the public interest.
The statement reads in part: “The
attention of the Federal Capital Territory Administration (FCTA) has
been drawn to a press conference conducted earlier today by Senator
(Mrs) Aisha Jummai Al-Hassan where she claimed that the quit notice
served on her event centre, A-Class, Maitama District by the FCTA had
political undertone.
“We wish to state that the quit notice has no political motive whatsoever as her facility is sitting on the public transit way.
“As a matter of fact, the Development
Control Department of the Abuja Metropolitan Management Council (AMMC)
over a month commenced the processes leading to the closure and removal
of all temporary recreational facilities situated on the public transit
ways within the Abuja Federal Capital City as the Administration’s major
road and railway projects are in progress.
“The quit notices being given in the
course of the exercise are not targeted at any person or group of
persons. They are also not politically motivated as claimed by Mrs.
Alhassan.
“Rather, they are part of FCTA’s routine
administrative processes aimed at ensuring strict compliance with the
provisions of the Abuja Master Plan.
“The allegation by Mrs. Sani Alhassan,
the owner of A-Class, one out of many affected gardens, that the
administrative measures have political undertone is untrue and most
uncharitable.
“The A-Class is not the only recreation
centre on the public transit way that was served quit notice. For
instance, Leisure Park, which is directly opposite A-Class, among other
non-conforming land users, was also served the same quit notice.
“It will be recalled that at the end of a
recent monthly FCTA Operational Briefing over a month ago, the FCT
Executive Council had reiterated the determination of the Administration
to strictly enforce the provisions of the Abuja Master Plan as an
ongoing process.
“In the process, a total of 202 cases of land use violation have been sealed across the Federal Capital City.
“That shows clearly that there is no
political motive whatsoever behind the quit notices, as they were
informed by time honoured rules and regulations guiding development of
structures in the Federal Capital City and such rules are not targeted
at individuals or groups of persons.
“Mrs. Sani Alhassan should therefore
desist from reading political or other parochial meanings to normal and
general administrative measures intended to uphold the intent of the
Abuja Master Plan and the overriding public interest.”
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