Federal Capital Territory Administration has demolished the UTC Shopping Complex located at Area 10, in the Garki area of Abuja, Nigeria’s capital.
Gatekeepers News reports that the Joint Task Force of the FCTA stormed the area in the early hours of Saturday to carry out the exercise.
Hundreds of the traders in the UTC had staged a protest over the planned demolition in April, 2023. They had barricaded the main entrance to the Abuja Municipal Area Council (AMAC) and the FCTA secretariats to expressed displeasure.
According to reports, the traders had been instructed to move to the other complex provided, which, they argued, had not been completed and could not contain the over 480 shops in the now demolished complex.
One John Sunday who admitted that the FCTA had sent a notice earlier in the year, said the shop owners had relaxed since the matter of the ordered move was still being contested in court.
“Yes, we were given notice earlier this year that they were coming. But the whole matter is still in court, according to what our leaders in the complex told us. So we just had hopes that it was a fifty-fifty situation; we didn’t think it would happen this way. So perhaps the case had been settled in court without us knowing”.
