By Amos Aar
THE General Manager, Alhaji Garba Baba Conglomerate, Mr Friday Adodo, has called on the China Harbour Company, the contractor handling the construction of the Keffi-Makurdi-Enugu dual carriageway, to ensure that property owners are adequately compensated before their structures are demolished to avoid crisis.
Adodo, who stated this in an interview on Sunday in Makurdi, lamented that part of the structure of the house of his boss was pulled down on Saturday without adequate compensation.
“They should ensure that compensation is paid before demolition. They should not demolish people’s structures without compensation.
“The Chinese construction company is pulling down people’s structures with the help of the military.
“The ideal thing is, a letter of consent has to be sent to the owner of the structure billed for demolition to sign several weeks before the actual demolishing date. It is not done with force,” Adodo said.
He, however, disclosed that the amount given to them as compensation was grossly inadequate, stressing that they were under-paid.
Mr Adodo said that they wrote a letter to the Federal Ministry of Works and Housing to revalue their structure that was earmarked for demolition and they agreed to revalue it only for them to see workers of the company with soldiers to give them backing to enable them demolish the structure.
“We are going to approach the court for redress because it is our last resort and hope,” he said.
When contacted, the Public Relations Officer of the company, Mr Jerome Zaamo, said that according to the records given them by the ministry, the property owner was adequately compensated.
“The enumeration number in respect of the compensation is 4346. This shows that he was compensated,” said Mr Zaamo, who however admitted that the claimant wrote a letter complaining of poor compensation.
“The amount that was paid to him was N422, 280 in the year 2021 but I have forgotten the actual date. Compensation is the responsibility of the federal government and not the company,” Zaamo stressed.
