Posted by By FRANCIS AWOWOLE-BROWNE, Abuja on
Authorities of the Federal Capital Territory Administration (FCTA) have described as huge joke the purported re-construction of the partly demolished building, in Abuja ,belonging to the National Chairman of Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Dr. Ahmadu Ali, vowing that the bulldozers would soon return to complete the demolition.
• Denies getting order to stop demolition and sale of govt houses
Authorities of the Federal Capital Territory Administration (FCTA) have described as huge joke the purported re-construction of the partly demolished building, in Abuja ,belonging to the National Chairman of Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Dr. Ahmadu Ali, vowing that the bulldozers would soon return to complete the demolition.
Also, they denied that the sale of the government houses either to the former legislators or any other persons had been revoked by President Umar Yar' Adua.
Executive Secretary of the FCTA and Chairman of the FCT Transition Committee, Engineer Mohammed Sani Al-Hassan, who reacted to the decision of the party chairman to resume repairs to the house, based allegedly on the new order from 'above" directing the stoppage of further demolition of his house, said no order has come from anywhere to stop the demolition of houses on sewer line or stop the sale of houses, which had been concluded.
According to him, no one should think that because the former minister, Nasir el-Rufai, has left, then the policies taken in the interest of the people in the capital city would be reversed. 'Indeed, what we are trying to do is to strengthen the policies for a firmer implementation", he added.
Engineer Al-Hassan maintained that the real reason the demolition of Dr. Ali's house was halted was because the evaluation had not been concluded properly and had to be done so as to know how much he would be compensated.
Said he: 'That construction work has resumed on the building is news to me. We stopped the demolition not on the order from above but to give way for proper evaluation, the house will go. He is not the only one affected. There are others on the same line that will surfer the same fate.
'No order whatsoever to our knowledge at the FCTA, so where people get the order, I don't know, and the sale of the houses was a major policy of monetization of the Federal Government and as I am talking to you, there is no contrary directive", he stressed.
The executive secretary maintained that governance is continuous and there couldn't have been a vacuum in the administration of the Federal Capital Territory, describing as a huge joke claims that there have been a stoppage order.