The Federal Capital Territory Administration
(FCTA) has marked for demolition a multi-
million naira complex belonging to a member of
the New Peoples Democratic Party (nPDP).
The owner of the complex, Senator Aisha
Jummai Al-Hassan, raised the alarm over the
alleged plan to demolish the complex at a news
conference in Abuja yesterday.
Al-Hassan, the senator representing Taraba
North Senatorial District, said she had been
given 48 hours on Thursday to remove her A-
Class Park located in the highbrow Maitama
area of Abuja.
Addressing journalists yesterday, Al-Hassan
traced the decision by the FCTA to demolish the
complex to her membership of the nPDP.
She said: “On the 26th of September 2013, in
fulfillment of the PDP threat to deal with
members of the Baraje-led division of the PDP,
a two-week notice to demolish the A-class
park and event centre was served on A-Class
Events Management Services Limited, and
yesterday (Thursday), another notice, a 48-
hour notice dated 24th October 2013, was also
issued.
“I am a free born citizen of Nigeria whose rights
to freedom of choice and association are
guaranteed under Chapter 4 of the Nigerian
Constitution 1999 as amended.
“If because of the grievances that I have
against my party, the PDP, especially its
leadership at state level, I decided to belong to
an aggrieved divide of the party led by Alhaji
Kawu Baraje, I see no reason why I or any
member of the divide should be witch-hunted or
persecuted and many other Nigerians (park
owners and workers) punished.”
Al-Hassan said that in response to a letter by
the FCTA directing A-Class to vacate its
location, the management of A-Class park
wrote to the FCT Minister, Senator Bala
Mohammed, urging him to allow the park to
continue operation until such a time that actual
and physical development of the Maitama
Transit Way would commence.
The park, she said, also reminded Mohammed
of relevant sections of the allocation letter
which said that the allocation was pending the
identification of an alternative site.
She said that the space for the park was given
to her when authorities of the FCTA discovered
that the place earlier allocated to her was
encumbered.
She said: “By another letter reference AMMC/
P&R/S.500 dated 17th March 2010 from Park
and Recreation Department of the FCTA,
approval was given to A-Class Events
Management Services Limited to develop and
manage a park on a site measuring
approximately 3.0 hectares on the transit way
corridor Maitama District.”
She noted that one of the conditions in the
letter of allocation of plot 102 A00 was that the
offer was for a five-year period in the first
instance, renewable after satisfactory
performance.
The lawmaker said it might interest Nigerians
to know that while she was being hounded and
issued threats to demolish A-Class Park, two
other parks were given approval to operate
parks in the same area.
She noted that contrary to the promise of an
alternative site for A-Class Park, none was
given “despite several reminders to the minister
by me personally and through my colleague
and brother, Senator Smart Adeyemi, the
Chairman, Senate Committee on FCT.”
She added that the development of the
Maitama Transit Way was yet to commence.
According to her, “the Maitama Transit Way will
only be developed and linked to the light rail
lines when completed, and everybody knows as
fact that the light rail line project that will go
round the FCT with linkages to many transit
ways within the city is not anywhere near
completion.
“If A-Class Park and Events Centre is
demolished with others on the transit ways as
alleged by the FCTA, what will the FCTA do with
the space since development of the transit
ways is not even in contemplation now?”
The Taraba-born lawmaker lamented that more
than 200 employees at the highbrow park were
about to lose their means of livelihood.
She called on President Goodluck Jonathan to
intervene in the matter. “I am calling on him
that he should see what his officers are doing
because whether it is development control,
whether it is FCTA, whether it is the minister or
not, they are all members of the executive that
are doing this, and they are doing this contrary
to his vision of wanting to employ the Nigerian
youths to make them useful to themselves and
to Nigeria.
“This single act of demolishing this park, they
are just hiding behind assertion that no people
have been building on transit ways. People
have been building on corridors. Who gave the
people permission to build?
“If you are not authorised to be in a place in
this FCT, will you stay one hour without being
chased out by development control?
“They gave all the people, knowing full well that
these places are road corridors. Right now, why
I am saying that it is a case of witch-hunting
and persecution is because I know for a fact
too that they are not ready now to develop this
transit way.
“I know too as a legislator that no money is
given in the budget to develop this transit way.
With due respect to them, it is not true.
“They are not developing anything. They are
just persecuting me.”
But the Federal Capital Territory Administration
(FCTA) yesterday said that its planned
demolition of the park no political undertone.
A statement by the Special Adviser (Media) to
the FCT Minister, Nosike Ogbuenyi, said that
the Development Control Department of the
Abuja Metropolitan Management Council
(AMMC) over a month ago commenced the
processes leading to the closure and removal
of all temporary recreational facilities situated
on the public transit ways within the Abuja
Federal Capital City as the Administration’s
major road and railway projects were in
progress.
It added that the planned demolition of the of
the park was in the public interest.
The statement reads in part: “The attention of
the Federal Capital Territory Administration
(FCTA) has been drawn to a press conference
conducted earlier today by Senator (Mrs) Aisha
Jummai Al-Hassan where she claimed that the
quit notice served on her event centre, A-Class,
Maitama District by the FCTA had political
undertone.
“We wish to state that the quit notice has no
political motive whatsoever as her facility is
sitting on the public transit way.
“As a matter of fact, the Development Control
Department of the Abuja Metropolitan
Management Council (AMMC) over a month
commenced the processes leading to the
closure and removal of all temporary
recreational facilities situated on the public
transit ways within the Abuja Federal Capital
City as the Administration’s major road and
railway projects are in progress.
“The quit notices being given in the course of
the exercise are not targeted at any person or
group of persons. They are also not politically
motivated as claimed by Mrs. Alhassan.
“Rather, they are part of FCTA’s routine
administrative processes aimed at ensuring
strict compliance with the provisions of the
Abuja Master Plan.
“The allegation by Mrs. Sani Alhassan, the
owner of A-Class, one out of many affected
gardens, that the administrative measures have
political undertone is untrue and most
uncharitable.
“The A-Class is not the only recreation centre
on the public transit way that was served quit
notice. For instance, Leisure Park, which is
directly opposite A-Class, among other non-
conforming land users, was also served the
same quit notice.
“It will be recalled that at the end of a recent
monthly FCTA Operational Briefing over a
month ago, the FCT Executive Council had
reiterated the determination of the
Administration to strictly enforce the provisions
of the Abuja Master Plan as an ongoing
process.
“In the process, a total of 202 cases of land use
violation have been sealed across the Federal
Capital City.
“That shows clearly that there is no political
motive whatsoever behind the quit notices, as
they were informed by time honoured rules and
regulations guiding development of structures
in the Federal Capital City and such rules are
not targeted at individuals or groups of
persons.
“Mrs. Sani Alhassan should therefore desist
from reading political or other parochial
meanings to normal and general administrative
measures intended to uphold the intent of the
Abuja Master Plan and the overriding public
interest.”
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