Over 400 traders at the demolished Area 7 Shopping Complex in Abuja, have written a petition to the Minister of the Federal Capital Territory, Mr. Nyemsom Wike, demanding stringent punitive measures for government officials who supervised and carried out the alleged illegal demolition.

The aggrieved traders of the shopping complex wrote to the FCT Minister through their lawyer and Senior Advocate of Nigeria, Mr. Chukwuma-Machukwu Ume, urging Wike to dismiss all the officers of the FCTA, who partook in the demolition of Area 7 Shopping Complex, Garki Abuja.

The traders also demanded revocation of the grant of management of the markets in FCT from Abuja Investment Company Ltd as it had only consumption disposition and lack the initiative to open new frontiers in virgin areas.

According to the petitioners, property belonging to the Federal Capital Development Authority worth billions of Naira were dismantled and carted away and remained unaccounted following the illegal demolition of the shopping complex.

Following the moves to demolish the complex, the traders dragged the FCT, FCDA, and Urban Shelter to court in 2021, and on December 2021, the court ordered parties to maintain status quo.

They alleged that despite the interim order of the court, the Urban Shelter and the Abuja Metropolitan Management Council disobeyed the order and ferried in about Thirty armed thugs dressed in fake Nigerian Police uniforms with badges and masked to conceal their identity.

They told Wike that Urban Shelter, Abuja Investment Company Ltd. and Abuja Metropolitan Management Council had commenced erection of structures in the illegally demolished shops, despite that the new structures were contrary to the Abuja Master Plan.

The High Court of the Federal Capital Territory had on the 24th last month, made another order restraining the defendants from going on with any construction of shops as well as the allocation of shops in that Area 7 Shopping Complex, Garki, Abuja.

The letter stated that the immediate past FCT Minister was not well guarded on the need to adhere to the FCT Master Plan and some of the public servants of the FCTA took advantage of these lapses and flaunted the orders of the court.