Some residents of Dutse in Jigawa, on Sunday expressed disappointment over the on-going demolition of structures in the state capital by the Dutse Capital Development Authority (DCDA).
Some of the residents, whose houses were demolished, told the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) that they were not given any notice before the exercise commenced.
NAN reports that some of the houses on the main road were pulled down to pave way for the on-going construction of township roads within the city.
One of the residents affected by the demolition, Babangida Muhammed, told NAN that he was invited to the District Head’s residence on Saturday night and was told that his house would be demolished.
Mohammed noted that less than 24 hours after, he saw a bulldozer which pulled down his house.
"As I am talking to you now, five rooms were affected while 70 of my students (Almajiris) have no place to sleep,” he said.
Another resident, Amina Iliyasu, said she was neither informed nor compensated before the commencement of the exercise.
Iliyasu said that the house belonged to her father who just retired from the state civil service.
"My father built the house before his retirement, I am worried about where we are going to live if we are not compensated and my dad is now a pensioner,” she added.
Iliyasu said that he was not given any notice before his house was demolished.
According to him, officials of DCDA came to evaluate his house and in less than 24 hours, they came back to demolish without speaking to anybody.
Another victim who pleaded to speak under condition of anonymity described the action of the government as callous.
Efforts to speak with any of the officials of DCDA failed as the chairman of the authority, Alhaji Bashir Aminu, did not pick his calls or respond to Short Message Service (SMS) sent to him.
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