FCTA Demolishes Utako Market
The FCT Administration on Monday raised the alarm over safety concerns and poor sanitation in Utako Market, threatening to shut it down to avert an epidemic.
Utako Market, reputed as one of the largest markets in Utako District in Abuja’s City Centre, is managed by the Abuja Municipal Area Council (AMAC).
The Director, Department of Development Control, Mukhtar Galadima, who is also the leader of the taskforce, said the discovery of the poor sanitation situation in Utako Market was disturbing.
He said the market had become a “time bomb and disaster waiting to happen.”
Mukhtar stated that there was an urgent need to clean up the market and ensure that disaster and epidemic were averted.
He expressed displeasure that such a market located within the heart of the city could be allowed by its managers to degenerate into a place where both human and environmental safety are compromised.
While saying that an urgent meeting would be convened with all stakeholders in the market, he also assured that proactive measures must be taken.
He noted that more worrisome was the fact that the market managers have illegally allowed the market to overflow into major streets around Utako residential areas.
According to him, the taskforce would not allow traders to occupy the streets again because they had started vandalising and defacing the road infrastructure.
Also speaking, the Secretary of FCTA’s Command and Control, Peter Olumuji, said apart from the nuisance in the area, residents around the neighbourhood, have also complained of security threats from the market.
Olumuji also disclosed that the market has been overtaken by idle youths and suspected hard drug addicts.
