…Seek urgent govt intervention

By Luminous Jannamike and Ezra Ukanwa

RESIDENTS of Police Estate, Kurudu, Abuja have cried out for help following an alleged distortion of the master plan of the area.

They lamented the illegal encroachment and conversion of spaces into alien structures by unscrupulous property developers over the years

According to them, the violation of approved layouts and the master plan unfortunately has not been challenged by the Federal Capital Territory Development Authority, FCDA..

Briefing journalists during a street protest on Saturday, the Vice President of Kurudu Police Estate, Oregbesola Lekan, claimed that activities of hoodlums targeted at the estate residents had been relatively successful because of the unchecked activities of the developers.

He said, “This is a police estate, one of the best that would have been if the right thing was done. This will have been one of the best estates. We know what was here before many of us bought houses here, and we saw the envisioned police estate to be but that approved plan has been distorted.

“It has been distorted as we speak where was marked out for recreation to make the life of people in this estate better. Now, they have turned it into a residential building. We have a boarding school around a beer parlour and a nightclub in an estate and it is opened up to the community; we are not safe! We have more than 10 porous entrances to this estate.

“We’ve had cases where armed robbers came in and even attacked the police officer and disarmed him. We have had a series of armed robberies. It is the personnel efforts of the association that has saved the lives of people at several instances that were being attacked in a police estate.”

Lekan also alleged that those culpable enjoy different levels of support from some people in the corridors of power as several attempts to call the attention of the authorities had proven abortive.

“The developer is doing anything he likes. He wants to turn us into a cash cow and force himself on us to manage and be collecting money and we have refused that. He has been getting support from some people in the police. We have written several letters, more than 30 to the Police, to FCDA to come to our rescue. We know that every time we write, the AIG will minute immediately. But, the letters are always buried because they have their way, the developer has his way”, he said.

“You pay for infrastructure which is supposed to take care of your road, water and electricity, but 90 or 100% of people did their own borehole and then we begin to ask if I spent 600,000 boreholes then I am supposed to remove that from the infrastructure. We’re not even saying that, we’re saying look, give people a discount”, he added.

Lekan, therefore, called on the authorities to intervene adequately to their plights.

“We’re calling the Minister of FCT, the IG of Police, FCDA, please we have written several letters to several IGs, we need you to come here and see things and tell whether we are just making noise. If you see the videos during the rainy season in this estate, you will feel sorry for people. People will be drawing water from their houses in an estate where you pay with your money,” he said.

Another resident, a woman who spoke anonymously, said: “We can’t come out when it is raining because of poor drainage. Then light, if not for the association that intervened, electricity was very poor. We had to get an extra transformer based on individual imputes. So, that is how we’ve been managing ourselves.”