RCCG, Winners Chapel Estates, 35 more to be demolished in Abuja

Despite the controversy generated by the demolition of over 500 housing units by officials of the Federal Capital Territory Administration’s department of development control in Lugbe 1 Extension, Gosa, recently, the FCT A says 37 more estates have been pencilled in for demolition. There is no going back on the demolitions of the “illegal” structures, it said.
The development control department, on September 28 and 29, demolished about 500 housing units at Minanuel Estate. The demolition of the houses has received a lot of negative reactions from the media and various other stakeholders and rights activists.
The National Assembly joint committee on the FCT led by Senator Smart Adeyemi had visited the Minanuel Estate where the senator expressed shock that development was going on land allocated to “National Assembly members and other Nigerians”.
Adeyemi had, during the visit to the estate, queried the development control for allowing the development to continue to about 80 per cent completion unabated and had demanded that both officials of the department and the developers should meet with the Senate. A meeting was held and another meeting was rescheduled for October 2, 2012, to further deliberate on the matter but, before that date, the development control rolled out its bulldozers and demolished the estate.
Subscribers to the estate, under the auspices of Coalition of Minanuel Estate Subscribers Union, on Tuesday carried out a peaceful protest at the entrance of the National Assembly where they presented a petition address to Senate president David Mark, calling on the legislators to intervene and see to it that justice is done in the matter, Deputy director of the department, Hamza Madaki, who was a guest on Raypower FM public affairs programme, “Political Platform”, yesterday threatened that there was no going back on demolition of any illegal structure in the territory.
He said that, apart from the estates so far demolished, 37 other estates had been earmarked for demolition.
A list from the department of development control shows that RCCG Estates; Sites A, B, C and D belonging to the Redeemed Christian Church of God; and Goshen Estate 1 and 2, belonging to Living Faith Church (AKA Winners Chapel) located in Pyakasa as well as NEPA Cooperative Estate and Civil Defence/Defenders Estate located in Lugbe CRD and Sabon Lugbe respectively are among the estates to be affected by the demolitions.
Other estates to be demolished are Trademore Estate, Sabon Lugbe; Lento Estate, Pyakasa; Pent House Estate, Sabon Lugbe; Grenland Estate, Kyami; Doctor’s Court Estate, Sabon Lugbe; Isvin Estate, Kyami; Ejima Group Estate, Kyami; Good Heart Grup Estate, Lugbe CRD; Redwood/Bidmusdruhill Estate, Kyami; and Weather Field Estate, Sabon Lugbe, among others.
The deputy director insisted that several notices had been served the demolished estates right from the time of excavation at the construction sites of the affected estates, apart from public announcements warning people not to patronise estates after Lugbe.
 DailyPost