Whatever reasons to be advanced as a pretext forthis violation can never be tenable. The fact is that the available General Hospitals in the City are never adequate, they are always filled beyond their capacities. On many instances patients on emergency cases requiring admissions at the public hospitals wereturned down due to lack of beds.
The green areas were violated by the Wikeadministration, with serious consequences of the destruction of many water and sewer lines, and thecontamination of domestic water services. These haveconcomitant implications on the health of the residents. Unfortunately, the implementation of the health centers for treatments, are now threatened with the violations of the Hospital lands for other uses.
Even before the advent of the FCT, this revered site has been occupied by Fulani nomads, as the original inhabitants of the land. By law, it is their right to be resettled elsewhere and compensated. More so now, that cattle grazing is a major challenge and embarrassment in the Abuja metropolitan area. We have made many presentations previously on this matter.
Wuye District is now well developed and very ripe for the implementation of the Hospital project. However, it would not be fair to expel the Fulani nomads from the site without proper resettlement by the Authority just like all other original inhabitants andcitizens. The Wike administration wouldn’t have met this site waiting for the commencement of the Hospital project, if not for the usual paltry budgetary provisionsby the Governments, and the failure to resettle the Fulani original inhabitants.
To allow the housing project to continue on this site, is akin to being unmindful of the land use requirement, the human health, and the rights of the citizens that were entitled to resettlement and most importantly, the rights of the Wuye residents’ community to a public health facility. The ongoing development violates all these considerations. Abuja as the capital city of Nigeria is not an ordinary city. This violation should attract the attention of the Federal Ministry of Health, non-governmental health organizations, World Health Organization (WHO),UNICEF and others.
The next question is, who is the beneficiary of this violation? The sign board on the site is reading Full Moon Estate Developer Ltd. However, a board was placed on the site earlier by another claimant, Air Enterprises Company Limited, which states that the property is subject to litigation, before the FCT High Court, with the Full Moon Estate Developers Ltd among the Defendants. It is either there was an out of court settlement or contempt of court, otherwise the Full Moon cannot continue with development on the site.
Both the allocations to Full Moon and Air Enterprises are completely wrong. Any purported Ministerial approval concerning the change of land use on this land, by any Government, present and past, is an abuse of power.
Section 28 of the Land Use Act of 1978empowered Governors to revoke lands for overriding public interest. Sub Section 28 (b) described overriding public interest to mean a land required for public purpose. A General Hospital can never be described otherwise.
Lands, are therefore to be revoked from private for public use. Meanwhile, Ab-initio this land, plot No. 546 B03 is earmarked for the District Hospital, meaning it is already a public land. But, as it is the current Minister is abusing the powers vested on the FCT Minister, in a reverse order, by denying the public and handing over the hospital lands for private use.
The situation is now so dare that, due to the overstretching of the available health facilities, even at the Abuja Federal Medical Center, a makeshift space had to be provided with mattresses in an office in order to treat admitted patients. We can imagine the situation and the traumatic experiences of patients and their loved ones at the lower hierarchy hospitals, where the less privileged members of the public find solace,against the exorbitant medical bills at the private hospitals. If the FCT Administration cannot provide additional lands for hospitals in the already developed areas of the City, in order to alleviate the dare situation, it must not change the uses of the already earmarked lands for Hospitals.
The Development Control Department visited and sealed the site on Tuesday. But as soon as they left, theabhorrent estate developer unsealed the site and continued with his development. What it means, is that there is a higher authority empowering the developer to disrespect the enforcement by the Development Control Department.
All keen observers in the affairs of the FCT today knows that there is a major shift from the way the current administration is handling issues in the Capital City compared to its predecessors.
The Wuye District case is not an isolated incident of violation. Indeed, that of Katampe Extension has been lingering for long. The immediate past Director of URP Department was removed for advising the administration against the violation of the Hospital land.
We propose that records should be taken, of all the health facilities provided in all the districts in the city. Deficits should be identified, with the view to making them up. Where the facilities have been hijacked for other uses, contrary to their earmarked land uses, they must be reclaimed and restored.
Concluded.