Benúe demolishes 40 shanties

The Benue State Government on Thursday demolished 40 illegal structures in Makurdi, the state capital.

The General Manager (GM) of the Benue State Urban Development Board (UDB), Tarnongo Mede, who led a team to carry out the exercise, said it came as a result of the alarming spread of shanties in some parts of state. He told journalists shortly after the exercise that Governor Hyacinth Alia ordered that the city should be revitalised.

He said, “In this first phase, we have removed over 40 shanties around town and we were able to open roads that were blocked by developers. This assignment will continue in places where they are blocking access roads by developers and would cover the entire Makurdi city.

“We intend to open the roads; major access routes. We just started with the South Bank of Makurdi and very soon we will move to the North Bank area of Makurdi. If you go to North Bank around the Catholic Church, you will see containers lying on the fence. They have reduced the roadside and defaced the environment.

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“Enough notices were served on the affected people because we don’t remove or demolish any property without giving notification. This time around, we involved the media. We did radio announcement for two weeks informing the public about this and told the owners of those shanties to remove them. Therefore, the notice had been there for months before we embarked on the exercise.”