By Laide Akinboade, Abuja

Despite protests by the affected residents, the Minister of Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Nyesom Wike has said no amount of blackmail; intimidation can stop his administration from removing illegal shanties that are harbouring criminals in Abuja.

The Minister of FCT stated this when he paid an unscheduled visit to the recently demolished shanty settlement at the Cadastral Zone B03 along a railway corridor in Wuye District of the city.

The Minister, who was accompanied by the heads of various security agencies in the FCT and senior officials of the FCTA, said safeguarding the lives and property of Abuja residents remain a major priority for his administration.

Wike, while addressing journalists at the site said the visit was to inform the settlers about the government’s position regarding the illegal shanties that abound the metro line rail corridor and why they were being removed.

He said, “As you can see, we have had a lot of threats of insecurity in the FCT and the security agencies are working 24 hours a day to make sure that Abuja is safe, to make sure that citizens and residents of Abuja go about their normal businesses, having sleepless nights to make sure that all of us sleep very comfortably. And they identified that this area is one of the areas that pose a lot of threat to security.”

“Our interest is to protect lives and properties, to safeguard Abuja so that it will be one of the best cities in the world.

“We are working in synergy with all the various security agencies. So, we are happy that we have come to see the place ourselves, and we will not allow things like this to continue to happen.”

Reacting to insinuations from certain individuals and groups that the administration’s actions were for ulterior motives, the Minister, said “I have also said that no amount of blackmail, intimidation, or abuse will stop us from doing our jobs”

The FCT Minister, however, stated that the Administration would, on compassionate grounds, interface with the dwellers and also promised to have further talks with their representatives to see what assistance the government could render to them.

He said, “We are human, and we have come here to tell them the proper position of the government and then see how we can also interface with them and see what we can do for them.

“But the truth is that no government worth its salt will fold its hands and allow this place to be occupied by hoodlums. You can imagine the number of persons here whom we cannot identify. We hear many crimes are being committed outside, and at the end of the day, they come here to stay.

While setting up a committee made up of heads of security agencies, heads of relevant departments of the FCTA and five members of the community to work out modalities on the way forward, the minister issued a stern warning that the dwellers should not rebuild any demolished structure, saying, “We have told them not to build anything on the place, whether temporary or permanent until the government has taken the final decision on what to do on this piece of land.”

Earlier, the spokesman of the shanty dwellers, Abba Garu, had appealed to the minister for shelter, saying that many of them had resided in the area for as much as three decades. He also appealed to the FCT Minister to provide an alternative and expressed their readiness to vacate the area.

Garu told the minister that the last demolition on Friday was the 22nd time the community has been demolished.

He said that they are about 10,000 dwellers in the shanty community and that they are not claiming the land.

He said they have been giving way each time developments like the National Stadium catch up with them, so also the railway.

“Please help give us shelter where we can stay, ” the Ruga community leader begged Wike.

 The visit to Wuye was preceded by an emergency security meeting chaired by the FCT Minister.