Some residents of the Federal Capital Territory on Friday morning protested against the alleged grabbing of land from poor people by the FCT Minister, Nyesom Wike.
The aggrieved residents alongside human rights activists on Friday berated the FCT administration under Wike’s leadership for “grabbing land in communities dominated by poor people”.
A lawyer and human rights activist, who was among the protesters, Mr Deji Adeyanju, urged President Bola Tinubu to stop the FCT minister from implementing wicked policies that keep displacing hundreds of residents from their homes.
Mr Adeyanju said Wike’s “land grabbing policies will further exacerbate insecurity in the Federal Capital Territory”.
The lawyer said: “They are dismayed and they are worried that efforts to grab this land are more pressing and it is more unrelenting. Just like we have said earlier, we are appealing to President Bola Ahmed Tinubu to prevail on the FCT minister to release poor people’s lands to them. Poor people’s lands belong to the poor people.
“If they are badly in need of land to grab, they should go to Asokoro, Maitama Extension, and Guzape. There are many places to grab land. Why will you come to the poor to grab land so that you can give it to the rich? It will increase insecurity in the country.”
A social media influencer, Martins Vincent Otse, popularly known as VeryDarkMan also lent his voice to the oppression of poor FCT residents whose land has been taken by Wike’s administration.
“In this bad economy, with the price of dollars, with the price of foodstuffs, and you did not create a place for them to stay. This is craziness, wickedness and it is not fair. This act will cause a very great insecurity,” VeryDarkMan said.
For some weeks now, Wike’s has been demolishing houses in the Lugbe area of Abuja. Meanwhile, the victims of the demolition exercise have accused Wike’s administration of not giving them any prior notice.
In a video seen by The Bureau Newspaper, some of the victims were seen lamenting the injustice done to them by the minister.
“We saw the development control; they came here and the next thing they started removing houses. There was no prior notice,” one of the victims said.
“They didn’t tell us anything; all we heard was that the minister was interested in the place and that they said they should remove anything that is existing there.
“We have a layout which the director of development control signed his approval on. I don’t know why they are doing that. They did it in Centenary City and for 14 years, we have been going for relocation and up till now, we have not gotten it, but if they are interested in a layout, they do it within one month.”