Panic in Kaduna as El-Rufai moves to implement ‘demolition law’

After demolishing large swaths of targeted areas in Zaria and Kaduna towns, with much more marked for further removal, many residents of Kaduna town are on edge, with the passage into law last week of an executive bill that legalises the pulling down of structures in Kaduna deemed to stand against the city’s envisaged Master Plan. Gov. Nasir-El-Rufai Gov. Nasir-El-Rufai It is not clear when the new Kaduna Master Plan will come into being but Kaduna, being a colonial town, already has a Master Plan. Already, many property in high brow and lowly residential and commercial areas in Kaduna town inhabited for decades, have been marked for demolition by Kaduna State Urban Planning Development Authority, KASUPDA, for violation of extant building regulations, though many said they had official permission to build. Gbagyi villa is an old suburb of Kaduna, occupied by mainly middle class working families and senior retired civil servants. It is estimated that there are over 1, 200 homes there, and the area had been served demolition notice by the state government, after most of its structures were marked “illegal” about three weeks ago. The notice expired last Monday. “The new law is seen as an instrument that serves as a defence against all the law suits instituted by individuals and groups against the present government, seeking for compensation on destroyed property or restraining it from further destruction of marked ones,” said Barrister Gandu Idris of Idris and Co. Chambers, Kaduna.