Residents of Jabi Masalachi area of Abuja have been thrown into confusion following the demolition of the chief’s palace by the FCT Task Force on City Sanitation.
Politics Nigeria understands that the task force had acted on the instruction of FCT minister, Nyesom Wike, to pull down illegal structures in the area.
A resident, Ayuba Kefas, noted that the demolition of the palace was a source of concern to the indigenous people of the community as they “now had no place to converge for meetings” that required the attention of the chief.
“This is the first time this kind of thing is happening, especially demolishing the palace of a chief in any settlement in the FCT,” Kefas said.
He added that the situation was more worrisome to residents about their fate as the village was home to hundreds of low income earners.
Effort to speak with the chief yielded no result as he has still not recovered from the shock of losing his house to Wike’s bulldozers.
The taskforce, comprises of officials of the FCT Development Control Department, the DRTS, the police, NSCDC, the AEPB, among others have been demolition illegal structure, some, the authorities say are being used by criminal elements.
