The Federal Capital Territory Administration (FCTA) says it will prosecute any developer caught developing illegal structures on waterways and green areas across the city.Chief Felix Obuah, Coordinator, Abuja Metropolitan Management Council (AMMC), stated this during a joint inspection of parts of the city on Monday.

During the inspection, Obuah ordered the demolition of a box culvert, illegally constructed on a waterway with the intent to illegally acquire the green area for other purposes without approval. He said that the structure was illegally constructed by an unidentified Chinese company on Park 293, Utako, by Shehu Yar’Adua Way.He explained that the green area was located behind a Chinese hotel under construction, adding that the move was allegedly to extend development on the water way illegally.The coordinator said that erecting structures on waterways was one of the causes of flooding.“We saw a Chinese company we can’t identify, but people around the area said it was being constructed by a Chinese company that owns the hotel in the front of the green area.“They trespassed down to the green area in an attempt to illegally acquire it which was not in the approval given to the owner of the hotel,” he said.Also, Mr Mukhtar Galadima, Director of Development Control, FCTA, said that contravention was discovered during a routine inspection of ongoing projects across the city.Galadima said: “My team and I came to inspect what is going on at the site of the ongoing construction of a hotel by a Chinese company.“In the process, we noticed the reclamation of the green area and we alerted the council.“Once we identify the culprit, we will look at the prescribed sanctions that could be applied as punishment to deter others.”The Director, Parks and Recreation Department, FCTA, Mr Chidemelu Echee, said that the green area was designated as Park 293 in the Abuja Master Plan with a development plan for it.Echee pointed out that the world was gripling with global warming and expressed dismay that certain individuals were cutting down trees and building concrete on waterways.“It is unfortunate that some characters could contravene the law and alter the entire ecosystem.“The waterway is a river that is alive and should not be tampered with “and if you do, then it is a disaster waiting to happen”.On his part, Mr Osilama Braimah, Director, Abuja Environment Protection Board, described the development as a “great environmental degradation.”Braimah said that the area was a natural flood plain, adding that “the entire city management plan was to leave them as they were because they helped in maintaining the biodiversity of the city.“Constructing concrete structures on a green area is out of place and against the master plan”.Similarly, Mr Abdulrahman Mohammed, acting Director-General, FCT Emergency Management Department, said that no structure built on waterways would be allowed to stand. (NAN)

A federal appeals court on Monday rejected a request by U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration to allow it to revoke the temporary legal status of hundreds of thousands of Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans, and Venezuelans living in the United States.The Boston-based 1st U.

S. Circuit Court of Appeals declined to put on hold a judge’s order halting the Department of Homeland Security’s move to cut short a two-year “parole” granted to the migrants under Trump’s Democratic predecessor, Joe Biden. The administration’s action marked an expansion of the Republican president’s hardline crackdown on immigration and push to ramp up deportations, including of noncitizens previously granted a legal right to live and work in the United States.The administration argued that Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem had discretion to categorically end the migrants’ status and that the judge’s order was forcing the U.S. government to “retain hundreds of thousands of aliens in the country against its will.”But a three-judge panel comprised entirely of appointees of Democratic presidents said Noem “has not at this point made a ‘strong showing’ that her categorical termination of plaintiffs’ parole is likely to be sustained on appeal.”Karen Tumlin, a lawyer whose immigrant rights group Justice Action Center pursued the case, welcomed the court’s decision.She called the administration’s actions “reckless and illegal.”The administration could now ask the U.S. Supreme Court to intervene.“The Trump administration is committed to restoring the rule of law to our immigration system,” Homeland Security Department spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin said in a statement.“No lawsuit, not this one or any other, is going to stop us from doing that.”A lawsuit by immigrant rights advocates representing migrants challenged the agency decision to pause various Biden-era programs that have allowed Ukrainian, Afghan, Cuban, Haitian, Nicaraguan, and Venezuelan migrants to enter the country.While the case was pending, the Homeland Security Department on March 25 announced in a Federal Register notice that it had decided to terminate the two-year parole granted to about 400,000 Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans, and Venezuelan migrants.U.S. District Judge Indira Talwani, an appointee of Democratic President Barack Obama, on April 25 halted the agency’s action, which she said revoked previously granted parole and work authorisations for migrants on a categorical basis and without a necessary case-by-case review.She said the department’s sole basis for declining to allow the migrants’ parole status to naturally expire was based on a legal error, as it wrongly concluded doing so would foreclose the department’s ability to legally expedite their deportations. (Reuters/NAN)

Former President Muhammadu Buhari has expressed sadness over the death of Charity Mustapha. Charity was a sister to Boss Mustapha, the former Secretary to the Government of the Federation, during Buhari’s administration. This is contained in a statement by Malam Garba Shehu, spokesman to Buhari on Monday in Abuja.

The former president said he received the news of the passing of Charity after a prolonged illness with great sadness. He praised her strength and resilience in the period of her sickness, saying that “such a loss leaves a void that can never be filled. “The warmth and kindness for which she was known and with which she treated everyone will always remain in the hearts of her family and all those who met her one way or the other. “She would forever be remembered with respect and affection by all who knew her.May you and your family find the strength and fortitude to endure this grievous loss,” he said.(NAN