From Scholastica Hir, Makurdi
Shop owners in Makurdi, the Benue State capital, have kicked against attempts by the Benue State Government to demolish some structures including shops it tagged as illegal.
The Benue State Urban Development Board had on Tuesday morning, demolished over 28 illegal structures including 10 structures built on access road, two containers on Katsina-Ala street aldo called handset village two containers on Otukpo road as well as 14 shanties on Radio Benue way.
But while the officials of the board carried out the demolition, the shop owner comprising mostly of youths put up strong resistance at the Katsina-Ala handset village and blocked the street preventing the Police and staff of the agency from carrying out the demolition.
It however, took the intervention of soldiers who were swiftly deployed to the area to clear the protesting youths to enable the board carry out the exercise.
Speaking with newsmen, Leader of Handset Communication Repairers, Patrick Akor, decried the demolition exercise saying that no prior notice was given to them by the agency.
Akor said, “this is what we do to earn a living and now, they have demolished them without prior notice and we have been paying revenue to government. This is not fair at all.
Meanwhile, the General Manager, Benue Urban Development Board, Mr. Ternongo Mede, said they held several meetings with the leaders before embarking on the demolition.
He explained that the essence of the demolition is part of deliberate plans by government to give Makurdi, the state capital a befitting status and look.
He noted that most of the structures are situated around electricity transformer thereby constituting risk to lives, while some structures are mounted by the roadside impeding traffic and endangering commuters.
“On collection of revenue, the former GM who is a politician employed over 460 casual staff who were not paid and this caused a big problem for us.
“We have reduced the number to 228 and management is still discussing to reduce it to sizeable and manageable figure of 60 staff that we can pay,” Mr Mede said.