Senate faults FCTA’s demolition

Chairman, Senate Committee on Lands, Housing and Urban Development and former governor of Yobe State, Alhaji Bukar Abba Ibrahim, on Tuesday described the demolition exercise by the Federal Capital Territory Administration as “crazy.”
The condemnation come few days after Senator Osita Izunaso condemned the demolition of Minanuel Estate in Lugbe Extension as well as other estates within Abuja.
The  FCT Administration had vowed to demolish more illegal estates and structures.
Ibrahim spoke during the induction of 247 newly registered quantity surveyors and 19 newly registered practicing firms in Abuja.
While arguing that the demolitions could not be justified, especially at a time people were suffering under current housing deficit, Ibrahim said, “To me, it is crazy.”
The former governor maintained that the justification always given by development control department of FCTA that it gave defaulters a “stop work” order which they ignored, was lame.
He argued that “the relevant authorities should not allow people to engage and continue with structures in the first instance” and “should use law enforcement agencies to halt development of perceived illegal structures, instead of allowing such structures to be completed at all.”
He said, “If defaulters don’t stop work, why not bring in law enforcement team to stop them? I don’t think Nigerians are so lawless.”
In an address at the event, the president of Quantity Surveyors Registration Board of Nigeria, Mallam Husaini Dikko, noted that the transformation agenda of President Goodluck Jonathan had imposed a lot of responsibilities on registered quantity surveyors and alleged that construction projects had become instruments for money laundering.
He said the QSRBN was critically examining situations where huge capital projects in the building and construction sector were regularly executed without the quantity surveyors input on the government side.