I had cause to serve a stop work and quit notice on a petrol filling station project, which development had just commenced on a plot adjoining the central area market and along Olusegun Obasanjo Way. This petrol station is the NNPC mega filling station.
The grounds for my action were, firstly, there was no approval for the development. Even if a plan is approvable and is located in an area earmarked for such development, the developer must wait until the approval is granted before development can commence. The approving authority must be sure that all architectural and engineering designs are satisfactory, otherwise it is communicated to the developer to effect corrections prior to the final approval.
This provision was violated. Perhaps, because it is owned by a powerful government agency, the contractor felt that there was no need to comply with the regulation of acquiring the building plans approval prior to commencement.
Secondly, and most importantly the use of the area for petrol filling station is against the land use requirement and incompatible with the surrounding land uses. The NNPC mega station was not the only one allocated for filling station. At the time of the commencement of that work, we had earlier stopped others from development, for the same reason as we had stopped the NNPC.
The fact is that, all the allocations along that strip contravene the provisions of the Abuja Masterplan, because being the district site officer, I was aware that the whole strip adjoining the market to the east is earmarked for transportation corridor.
Specifically the plot occupied by the NNPC mega station is earmarked for parking space for the adjoining city center market, now the multi-storey building world trade center. We must choose between the two contending uses: to have the transportation corridor, which shall contain among others the city metro or Rail Mass Transit as originally planned in the Abuja Masterplan, or to jettison this proposal for the filling stations that allocations were made in contradiction with the development regulations.
This distortion is attributed to the allocation. Accordingly, the first point of consideration by the officers saddled with the responsibility of plots allocation in Abuja is the allocation’s compliance with the proposed land use requirement for the area. This procedure was violated. It is the responsibility on the development control to stop the work and draw the attention of the lands department to make necessary corrections by providing alternative site that shall suit the proposal. As the district site officer at the development control at the time, that responsibility was squarely on me, and I had discharged it accordingly not minding the might involved.
We later had emissaries to persuade us to lift the enforcement order, but upon convincing explanations, it was clear to them that even if the project was executed it would be a matter of time, for its eventual demolition in the future is imminent. For more than a month, the contracting firm could not proceed with its work. In such circumstances the contractor would certainly charge damages from its client, we were not sure whether it did or not.
Unfortunately, instead of commending our resilience aimed at ensuring corrections, we were astonished to learn that we were reported to the highest quarters as trying to frustrate the federal government policy of establishing NNPC mega station in Abuja, and security agencies were drafted to investigate.
We were eventually forced to rescind from continuing with the enforcement of the law as regards the development of this mega station, but despite the pressure and threat, I never committed myself to wrongly recommending for the compatibility of the development which could lead to the official granting of the building plans approval for the development. To my knowledge, the building plans for the development were never approved.
The imperative of the implementation of the Abuja Rail Transit program as proposed is never in doubt due to its dire need for easing of mass transit for the city. I was fully aware that the evil day was only postponed. Because in the future when the authority decides to embark on the metro project, the option shall be weighed against the NNPC mega station. It seems the evil day has now arrived.
