By Joyce Remi-Babayeju
Illegal Ruga settlers in a shanty community at Kukwuaba, along the Airport road, have threatened to resist the FCT Administration from evicting them from Abuja.
The illegal settlers on Tuesday in a boisterous manner resisted the FCT Administration joint task team on city sanitation known as Operation Sweep when they stormed the community to remove all the illegal structures there.
Speaking during the demolition of the illegal structures, the Secretary, Ruga Community, Ibrahim Yusuf said this is the 22nd time the community is facing demolition stressing that the occupants will continue to re-erect their structures until they are properly resettled.
Yusuf retorted that the community contributes immensely to the socio-economic development of the territory as one of the affordable neighborhoods within the city where artisans and labourers reside.
He insisted that members of the community cannot live in satellite towns outside the city centre due to the high cost of transportation, and therefore see the persistent efforts from the administration to vacate them from the settlement as an exercise in futility.
Speaking earlier, the Director, Security Services Department of the FCTA, led the Director of operations, Adamu Gwary, explained that the exercise was aimed at ridding the city of miscreants and vandals.
Represented by the Secretary, FCT Command and Control Centre, Peter Olumuji, expressed concerns that their continuous illegal occupation of the land is preventing their original owners from coming to develop them.
He called owners of the land to quickly take advantage of the current sanitation exercise embarked upon by the FCT Administration to commence development of their lands.
