The Federal Capital Territory Administration (FCTA) has decried massive return of umbrella market in Mpape community, few days after the demolition of illegal structures was relaxed in the area.
Mr Ikharo Attah, Chairman, FCTA Ministerial Taskforce on City Sanitation, disclosed this during an evaluation visit to the area on Sunday in Abuja.
Attah told residents that the demolition of illegal structures in the area was still in progress.
He added that the FCT Minister, Mr Muhammad Bello, had mandated the taskforce to ensure total clean up of the community.
He cautioned individuals planning to embark on construction or adjustment work to wait until the operation was over.
Attah said that individuals involved in projects in Mpape, must secure approval from the FCT Department of Development Control before proceeding.
He also warned that no illegal development and structure would be tolerated, saying Mpape was a theater of cleanup operation.
“We carried out major clean up of shanties and illegal structure two weeks ago from the very heart of over densely populated Mpape community.
“We have not gotten to 25 per cent of the total cleanup operation we are supposed to do even as we spend the whole of last week doing evaluation of the entirety of the work done across the city.
“I can tell you what we saw at Mpape was not looking good at all,” he said.
Attah added: “Some people assumed that we are not going to resume demolition, some even spread rumours that the taskforce has been disbanded by the FCT Minister.
“If you look at Mpape now, the enormity of illegality that is coming up there is multidimensional.
“The mobile shanties and massive return of umbrella or canopy markets, particularly in the evening is not good at all.”
He said the taskforce would continue to remove all illegal structures in the area, adding that the operation would touch Bedger quarry and Panteka markets by the roadside which was very disturbing.
“Sadly, they brought back all secondhand building materials to the road, but we are going to push them back very strongly.
“To be very candid, we have not even properly address the set back we took and have not looked at the old market because that particular one is an eye saw.
“What we saw within the week particularly this weekend shows that it is a bad bleeding points,” Attah said.
He added: “And we spoke to the Bwari Area Council that the market is a bad bleeding point with no entry point at all. It is very disturbing and with all of this there is still much work to be done.
“Mpape is just beginning and we are not going to issue special notice again like we did in the past. It is an ongoing operation so there is no need for new notice.
“We told people to vacate, but many of them refused and even those that we removed their shanties have fully returned.”(NAN)