Natives of Dagbalo community in Abuja Municipal Area Council (AMAC) have called on President Muhammadu Buhari and the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) to investigate the Federal Capital Territory Administration (FCTA) over fake plots allocations.
Speaking through their leader, Rev. Danjuma Tanko, during a press conference at the weekend, the natives urged the duo to probe the administration with regards to allocation of lands, especially those whose certificates of occupancy were approved below the stipulated one year time frame, saying investigating the nefarious activities of FCTA officials will aid the healing process for the marginalised natives.
Rev. Tanko said the Indigenes who were affected by the ill-fated demolition exercise by the FCTA were subjected to untold hardship and all manners of inhuman treatment by the past administration.
He said: “The resettlement and compensation department of the FCTA, on July 30, 2013, took a bulldozer in the company of well-armed military personnel and demolished the entire Dagbalo community and destroyed their farmlands without any resettlement or compensation.
“Our people were helpless and armless, and could do nothing to protect their right, so we reported the matter to the nearest Police division at Apo, where we were advised to go to court. The case has been in court for the past two years now. All efforts by our counsel to facilitate quick dispensation of justice has proved abortive, a development that is causing untold hardship and more suffering to our people.
“The FCTA, about this time last year, called for an out of court settlement which we did not object to. However, they have failed to fulfil their own part of the agreement for the past five months; instead they tried to lobby me to sell out my community which I bluntly rejected. So, we are back in court and since then they has resorted to delaying the court procedures.”
According to him, “counsel to the FCTA has joined in frustrating the case by failing to tender his redress for adoption which ought to have been done since July, 2015, before the court went on recess but neither the director nor their defence counsel were in court to tender their redress for adoption. Now, the resumption the next adjournment has been shifted October 17, 2015.
“We are appealing to the president, who we see as an act of God, to liberate us from our suffering through his anticorruption campaign by investigating the nefarious activities of the administration and the way they are subjecting indigenes of the FCT to immeasurable suffering by forcefully confiscating our land without due compensation and resettlement.”
Tanko further appealed to the president to direct the incoming minister of the FCT to ensure that their communities, which were wrongly demolished by the administration, is restored to the people, saying none of the affected indigenes have any place to call their village or hometown.
