The Chairman of the Federal Capital Territory Administration (FCTA) Ministerial Task Force on City Sanitation, Mr Ikharo Attah, has said the demolition of Mpape will persist till December, 2021.

Mr Attah who said this when he led a team of officials from the Department of Development Control and security agents to resume demolition in the area, stressed that the exercise would be sustained due to the return of shanties barely one week after the last demolition.

He said the exercise which was originally planned for three weeks would be extended to discourage the reemergence of illegal structures along the Mpape road corridor.

He explained that, “Today we are back to Mpape for what appears to be the most massive job since we came to the community two weeks ago. We have begged residents of the area to vacate the road side where we are having enormous challenges because of the scrap market sitting on the road shoulders.

“The obstructions on the road are also occasioned by the old shanty market that is bastardised in terms of urban and regional town planning practices, so we had to touch the panteka market, as well as the shanty market which are clearly a violation the Abuja master plan.

“We thought the cleanup in Mpape will be done in three weeks, but what we have seen in the last week shows that the ‘Operation Cleanup Mpape’ will last till the end of this year. We can’t leave Mpape till the end of this year, we may not be standing here every day, but it will be routine and periodic cleanup.”

He added that the Minister of the FCT, Malam Muhammad Bello, had handed over Mpape to the task team to clean up and report back to him, and that if he was not satisfied, the demolition would continue till next year.

According to a Daily Trust the apart from the panteka market, brothels and places of worship were also pulled down. The panteka market is said to be notorious for the sale of stolen goods and dealing in illicit drugs.

The Secretary, Command and Control of the FCT Security Department, Mr Peter Olujimi, assured that the sustained cleanup operations would dislodge miscreants and criminals from their hideouts.