The victims of the second phase of the demolition plan were the
unwelcome occupants of a Kaduna State school land. In the first phase,
in the first 100 days of the Malam Nasir el-Rufai administration, 39
residential buildings were pulled down in the university town, Zaria.
That exercise triggered panic and anguish. The government explained that
the demolished buildings were illegally built on land allocated to
public schools.
The second phase has caused probably just as much grief. The area targeted by the government bulldozers was a mini-printers’ paradise. Mr Ibe Emeka who owned three printing shops there, all of which were pulled down, said there were over 231 stalls to which no less than 1000 people laid claim, each shop having about five workers. Emeka reckoned that millions of naira was lost in the demolition.
What attracted them to the school in the first place? It must be its centrality, being in the Kaduna metropolis. Otherwise, the school, Government Secondary School, Doka, whose land they were accused of occupying illegally, has pretty little to offer. It is decrepit, its space grossly underutilised.
The printers and shop owners have been counting their losses since
the demolition. They woke up to see government bulldozers around their
shops.
The government had ordered everyone whose buildings were standing on land belonging to public schools to show proof why the buildings should be allowed to stand. Some of those who were afraid of being affected by the exercise went to court, trying to stop the exercise. But the bulldozers went to work again even when the case was pending in court. Some of the shop owners are of the view that they were not informed of the exercise, while some of them claimed to have received extension in their quit notice. The shop owners said they were not aware of any warning issued before the government bulldozer moved to the sight of the school premises.
Government officials insisted that warnings were issued in July. According to them, the warning issued in July covered all parts of the state where government lands have been illegally taken over by unauthorized persons.
The demolition at Government Secondary School, Doka, reportedly caught many residents and owners of shops unawares. The areas affected were Muri Road by Lagos Street, Lokoja Road, Gwari Road and Cameroun Road. All the shops were pulled down by the government bulldozer under the supervision of officials of the Kaduna State Urban Development Agency.
Emeka, whose three shops were demolished, said,
“We have over 1000 people affected by this development with millions of naira being lost on a daily basis. We were surprised beyond words when the government bulldozer moved here with government officials and security agents. It was shocking that a democratic government could act in a way that suggests that the people do not matter, or could one say it was because they have got what they wanted and we have to live with this for the next four years”.
He said that assuming the government had the best of intentions, the way and manner it carried out the demolition showed that the government no longer has feelings for the masses as hundreds of families are affected by the action of the government.
Emeka lamented that what happened showed that government can wake up any day and send people away from their homes and places where they are earning their legitimate income.
When The Nation visited the school, the buildings were old, unkempt and dilapidated. In fact weeds have taken over one of the abandoned staircases of the building. There was damaged school furniture packed inside classrooms, while students take lectures on one end inside the classrooms with cracked blackboards. The school has capacity to take 400-500 students, but the patronage is very poor. It was discovered that the shop owners and printers took advantage of the neglect of the school to help themselves. The school was not protected with perimeter fence to discourage would-be encroachers on the facility. It was gathered that local government officials also colluded with the businessmen to allocate small portions of land surrounding the school to entrepreneurs who are desperate to own shops in the city centre.
One of the entrepreneurs who is a graduate of Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria, Malam Mohammed Nasir said the government did not give adequate notice regarding the exercise. According to him, a government that was elected by the people only a few months ago should not have made demolition of buildings and shops its priority.
“People are suffering in this part of the country. There are problems of unemployment, insecurity, armed robbery, kidnapping, etc, and the people that are directly linked with these problems are the youths. Yet a government that had barely spent four months in office is compounding the problems”, he lamented.
Malam Nasir said he was baffled that the el-Rufai government could not look at the far reaching implications of demolition peoples shops and houses at a period the country is plagued with inadequate shelter and poverty. He said it was unfortunate that the governor and his team were concern about the aesthestics of Kaduna city and its environs. He said it was painful that the government failed to carry people along taking into consideration the fact that the masses are also stakeholders in the country’s journey to development.
The Assistant Head Teacher of the school, Mr Leo Danjuma said the demolition of the shops was a welcome development. He said the school authority had complained over the years that the presence of the shops around the schools was making the environment not condusive for learning. But that their complaints were never taken serious.
He said, “We are happy that all the shops were demolished because once Power Holding Company of Nigeria takes light and the printers put on their electricity generators, the next thing we do is to close the school for the day because you cannot teach with the noise pollution of the atmosphere. We have been held hostage by these people for a long time. Thank God, we have a corrective regime and everybody will learn his or her lesson, including local government officials who allegedly allocated the land to them and have been collecting taxes from the shop owners and printers”.
Mr Danjuma called on the state government to expedite action on the complete rehabilitation of the school, saying whenever there is rainfall, the school closes for the day because the roofs are leaking and there are always fears that part of the building structures that have become weak might collapse. He said government should also look into the problems associated with the on-going verification exercise in the state as majority of teachers have not been paid in the past three months. He said morale is low among teachers and the situation is compounded by an unfriendly environment for teaching and learning.
The spokesman of the state government, Samuel Aruwan told journalists that the exercise was not a witch-hunt. He also dismissed insinuations that the state government was insensitive to the plight of the people, insisting that the efforts of the present administration were geared towards recovering all government lands that were illegally acquired. The Nation observed that most of the people affected by the demolition were printers and shops owners dealing in printing materials such as ink, papers, and plates. Others are business centres, and restaurants. Many of them were seen moving out whatever remained of their properties from the sight of the demolished shops. It was gathered that majority of them are non-indigenes and have been in the business for over 20 years.
Aruwan later circulated a statement saying the interim chairman of Kaduna North Local Government Area Alhaji G. A. Kurfi has been suspended and that “local government councils have no role in the land recovery process beyond gathering and forwarding information to the appropriate agencies”
The statement further said, “Recent actions undertaken within Kaduna North local government council under the direction of the interim chairman did not comply with the guidelines for the land recovery exercise.”
One of the printers who gave his name as Elder Oni said the government should have relocated them to printers village with modern facilities to work rather than throw them out of business. Elder Oni who said he is married with four children said government action would have negative impacts on his family as he would have to look for something to do or manage in another person’s shop within the area before he could attend to other pressing family challenges such as payment of school fees.
Elder Oni advised the government not only to consult widely before embarking on such mission, but also to provide alternative shops and accommodation for the people. He called on President Buhari to intervene regarding the approach of Governor El-Rufai to demolition of buildings and shops in Kaduna state. He appealed that government should not worsen their economic predicament with policy that would render them homeless or jobless.
The second phase has caused probably just as much grief. The area targeted by the government bulldozers was a mini-printers’ paradise. Mr Ibe Emeka who owned three printing shops there, all of which were pulled down, said there were over 231 stalls to which no less than 1000 people laid claim, each shop having about five workers. Emeka reckoned that millions of naira was lost in the demolition.
What attracted them to the school in the first place? It must be its centrality, being in the Kaduna metropolis. Otherwise, the school, Government Secondary School, Doka, whose land they were accused of occupying illegally, has pretty little to offer. It is decrepit, its space grossly underutilised.
The government had ordered everyone whose buildings were standing on land belonging to public schools to show proof why the buildings should be allowed to stand. Some of those who were afraid of being affected by the exercise went to court, trying to stop the exercise. But the bulldozers went to work again even when the case was pending in court. Some of the shop owners are of the view that they were not informed of the exercise, while some of them claimed to have received extension in their quit notice. The shop owners said they were not aware of any warning issued before the government bulldozer moved to the sight of the school premises.
Government officials insisted that warnings were issued in July. According to them, the warning issued in July covered all parts of the state where government lands have been illegally taken over by unauthorized persons.
The demolition at Government Secondary School, Doka, reportedly caught many residents and owners of shops unawares. The areas affected were Muri Road by Lagos Street, Lokoja Road, Gwari Road and Cameroun Road. All the shops were pulled down by the government bulldozer under the supervision of officials of the Kaduna State Urban Development Agency.
Emeka, whose three shops were demolished, said,
“We have over 1000 people affected by this development with millions of naira being lost on a daily basis. We were surprised beyond words when the government bulldozer moved here with government officials and security agents. It was shocking that a democratic government could act in a way that suggests that the people do not matter, or could one say it was because they have got what they wanted and we have to live with this for the next four years”.
He said that assuming the government had the best of intentions, the way and manner it carried out the demolition showed that the government no longer has feelings for the masses as hundreds of families are affected by the action of the government.
Emeka lamented that what happened showed that government can wake up any day and send people away from their homes and places where they are earning their legitimate income.
When The Nation visited the school, the buildings were old, unkempt and dilapidated. In fact weeds have taken over one of the abandoned staircases of the building. There was damaged school furniture packed inside classrooms, while students take lectures on one end inside the classrooms with cracked blackboards. The school has capacity to take 400-500 students, but the patronage is very poor. It was discovered that the shop owners and printers took advantage of the neglect of the school to help themselves. The school was not protected with perimeter fence to discourage would-be encroachers on the facility. It was gathered that local government officials also colluded with the businessmen to allocate small portions of land surrounding the school to entrepreneurs who are desperate to own shops in the city centre.
One of the entrepreneurs who is a graduate of Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria, Malam Mohammed Nasir said the government did not give adequate notice regarding the exercise. According to him, a government that was elected by the people only a few months ago should not have made demolition of buildings and shops its priority.
“People are suffering in this part of the country. There are problems of unemployment, insecurity, armed robbery, kidnapping, etc, and the people that are directly linked with these problems are the youths. Yet a government that had barely spent four months in office is compounding the problems”, he lamented.
Malam Nasir said he was baffled that the el-Rufai government could not look at the far reaching implications of demolition peoples shops and houses at a period the country is plagued with inadequate shelter and poverty. He said it was unfortunate that the governor and his team were concern about the aesthestics of Kaduna city and its environs. He said it was painful that the government failed to carry people along taking into consideration the fact that the masses are also stakeholders in the country’s journey to development.
The Assistant Head Teacher of the school, Mr Leo Danjuma said the demolition of the shops was a welcome development. He said the school authority had complained over the years that the presence of the shops around the schools was making the environment not condusive for learning. But that their complaints were never taken serious.
He said, “We are happy that all the shops were demolished because once Power Holding Company of Nigeria takes light and the printers put on their electricity generators, the next thing we do is to close the school for the day because you cannot teach with the noise pollution of the atmosphere. We have been held hostage by these people for a long time. Thank God, we have a corrective regime and everybody will learn his or her lesson, including local government officials who allegedly allocated the land to them and have been collecting taxes from the shop owners and printers”.
Mr Danjuma called on the state government to expedite action on the complete rehabilitation of the school, saying whenever there is rainfall, the school closes for the day because the roofs are leaking and there are always fears that part of the building structures that have become weak might collapse. He said government should also look into the problems associated with the on-going verification exercise in the state as majority of teachers have not been paid in the past three months. He said morale is low among teachers and the situation is compounded by an unfriendly environment for teaching and learning.
The spokesman of the state government, Samuel Aruwan told journalists that the exercise was not a witch-hunt. He also dismissed insinuations that the state government was insensitive to the plight of the people, insisting that the efforts of the present administration were geared towards recovering all government lands that were illegally acquired. The Nation observed that most of the people affected by the demolition were printers and shops owners dealing in printing materials such as ink, papers, and plates. Others are business centres, and restaurants. Many of them were seen moving out whatever remained of their properties from the sight of the demolished shops. It was gathered that majority of them are non-indigenes and have been in the business for over 20 years.
Aruwan later circulated a statement saying the interim chairman of Kaduna North Local Government Area Alhaji G. A. Kurfi has been suspended and that “local government councils have no role in the land recovery process beyond gathering and forwarding information to the appropriate agencies”
The statement further said, “Recent actions undertaken within Kaduna North local government council under the direction of the interim chairman did not comply with the guidelines for the land recovery exercise.”
One of the printers who gave his name as Elder Oni said the government should have relocated them to printers village with modern facilities to work rather than throw them out of business. Elder Oni who said he is married with four children said government action would have negative impacts on his family as he would have to look for something to do or manage in another person’s shop within the area before he could attend to other pressing family challenges such as payment of school fees.
Elder Oni advised the government not only to consult widely before embarking on such mission, but also to provide alternative shops and accommodation for the people. He called on President Buhari to intervene regarding the approach of Governor El-Rufai to demolition of buildings and shops in Kaduna state. He appealed that government should not worsen their economic predicament with policy that would render them homeless or jobless.
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