September 08, (THEWILL) — The Ebonyi State Ministry of Capital City and Urban Development has demolished an ongoing building suspected to be a plaza located on the Azuebonyi axis in the Ebonyi Local Government Area of Ebonyi State.
Prior to the demolition, Commissioner for Capital City and Urban Development, Chief Sunday Elechi Inyima, stated that the ministry had earlier ordered the owner of the building to remove it because the building was sited in the area earmarked for a double lane along the Sub-Trans-Sharan Highway.
According to Chief Elechi, the building fell within the limit area of the 45 to 60 meters from the middle of the road for the Super Highway. He called on prospective developers to always get building approval from the ministry before the commencement of any building.
Chief Elechi said, “There was no approved building plan by the Ministry when the development was still at the foundation level. It has not even gotten to DPC, and we told the site engineer to stop work, and of course, we issued them a stop-work order. After that stop work order, we further issued them a revocation order and removal order for them to remove it from the foundation. We even confiscated some of their items.
“On the following month, May they came to our office that we should give them those things we confiscated that they will not come to the land again because we told them that this road is Sub Trans Shara Highway and there is a kind of limit you have to give from the middle of the road approximately 45 to 60 meters, and if you check 60 meters from the middle of this road, the whole of this building fell into it. Therefore, it was advisable for us to stop them, so we did.
“Fortunately, last week, I was going to my routine unscheduled inspection to a man building an industrial estate and to my greatest chagrin, they have not only started the building again, but the building has reached the second floor.
“I told my workers with the HOD Town Planning to ask them to stop and remove from the extent they have gone. Very unfortunate, the man wants to confront the government and continues with the building day and night, including Sundays, and that is how they were able to get to this extent.
“What we are trying to tell our people is that we are not in a Banana Republic; we live in a state where there is the rule of law at all levels. And this should serve as a deterrent to all other developers who may try to test the will of the government to take caution before they enter any form of development.
“They have to get approval, inspection and supervision from the Ministry of Capital City Development and Urban Planning. We cannot allow this because if we do, other people will copy it, and before you know it, the capital city will turn into a slum.
In the last Exco we held, the Chairman of Exco said we should commence the advertisement of the master plan, and if the master plan is anything to go by, then people have to adhere to the rules and regulations”, he said.
Sunday Ogbu is a professional journalist with eight - twelve years experience that had worked with various print and online media. Sunday specializes in news reporting with the aim of educating his readers on current social, political and economic occurences within his area of coverage. Sunday is a strong force to work with in the media industry and uses his positive attitude and tireless energy to encourage others to work hard and succeed. Sunday is inspired daily by his wife and their four children. In his free time, Sunday likes sight-seeing, reading and discussing issues of societal interest.
