Some traders were yesterday visibly worried as the FCT Ministerial Taskforce on City Sanitation demolished a mini market on the land belonging to National Council of Women Societies (NCWS) at Area 11, close to the FCT Administration secretariat.
During the demolition exercise on Monday, tagged ‘city clean up,’ the traders, mostly food vendors, told journalists that they were given three months by the Taskforce team to vacate the area, but they were still waiting for the administration to allocate another place to them.
A trader, Rafat Mohammed, said she was worried because there was nowhere for her to start up.
“This is worrying, where will I go and start? Government supposed to provide an alternative place for us before the demolition,” she said.
One of the leaders of the traders, Malam Ibrahim Lawal, who expressed anger over the incident, admitted that the FCT Administration gave them a notice of three months but it was not yet time.
Lawal said: “I feel very bad because we were given three months but it is not up to the time, We were following up the issue till late last week, the people that came told us that they were sent by the minister, others said the minister is not aware of the demolition, how comes? The minister promised us land, we have not seen it,” he said.
Fielding questions from journalists after the exercise, the Senior Special Assistant on Monitoring, Inspection and Enforcement to the minister of FCT, Ikharo Attah, explained that the area which was near the National Council of Women Societies (NCWS) had constituted a nuisance in the area.
He said pulling down of the illegal structures will bring about sanity in the area that has been converted to a mini market, which is against the master plan.
