Despite heavy rain, the Federal Capital Territory Administration (FCTA) yesterday demolished over 400 illegal structures in Lugbe along the Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport, Abuja.

The rain, which started at Lugbe-Across, Lugbe-Berger, Car wash and Lugbe Zone 5 and lasted for eight hours, did not deter the demolition as heavy security personnel were on ground to avoid breakdown of law and order.

The team; includes men of the Nigeria Army, Nigeria Immigration Service, Nigeria Air Force Nigeria Police Force, Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps, Abuja Environmental Protection Board as well as officials of the Department of Development Control of the FCTA

Some of the demolished illegal structures are found to be safe haven for criminals and settlers.

Director of Security Services in the FCTA, Adamu Gwary, vowed that the administration will not fold its hands and watch criminals overrun the city.

Gwary told reporters that the FCT Minister, Malam Muhammad Bello, has continued to show disdain with growing illegal structures posing security threat to the city.

He assured that with the minister’s political will the removal of illegal structures will be sustained.

Also speaking, Chairman, FCT Ministerial Committee on City Sanitation, Ikharo Attah, said the operation was occasioned by need to strengthen national security in the nation’s capital.

Attah explained that the administration had received disturbing reports that some illegal makeshift structures were being erected along the Airport road despite several demolitions.

On his part, the Chief Security Officer to the FCT Minister, Ahmed Rashid, also disclosed that the administration has also identified strategies that the scavengers, criminals and the illegal settlers are adopting and where they are hibernating: “and we are dislodging them.