One dead as youths resisted El-Rufai’s demolition of Gbagyi villa despite court judgment in favour of the community

One woman is reportedly dead following the invasion of Gbagyi Villa in Chikun LGA of Kaduna State for demolition by KASUPDA, acting on the directive of Kaduna State government under the leadership of Gov Nasir El-Rufai just less than seven days to the end of his tenure, despite the fact that the Gbagyi Villa community has judgment from a court of competent jurisdiction in their favour against Kaduna State government, KASUPDA, and their agents.

When Kasupda invaded Gbagyi Villa with fully armed uniform men, the youths both from Gbagyi Villa and environs came out in large numbers to resist the demolition since there was a court judgment in favour of the community.

Then the uniformed men started shooting to scare the resilient youths away. On hearing the news of the demolition and the gunshots, a woman simply identified as Sarah reported collapsing as her blood pressure was believed to have shot up, since she was said to have blood pressure (BP) issues. She was rushed to the hospital for medical attention, but unfortunately she couldn’t make it, as the report reaching Arise News247 has it that she has given up as of the time of filing this report.

However, the youths that massively came out vowed to take their lives into their hands to defend the community and defend the court judgement if the authority that was supposed to defend the judgement is now rising against the community in total disobedience to the judgment.

Though some houses had been demolished while the youths were resisting, eventually the resilient youths prevailed, and Kasupda and their security men retreated with a promise to return on a surprise attack, perhaps at night.

One of the residents, who simply identified himself as Haruna and spoke with Arise News247 correspondents, lamented that “the same government that imposed hard times on the masses is now out to round off by causing more havoc by destroying the little roof we have over our heads.”

Adding that following the court judgment in favour of the Gbagyi Villa community, “El-rufai asked us to fill out a form for regularization at the cost of N20,000, and the majority had done that.

“Again, just about ten days ago, Kasupda brought a letter that El-rufai had ordered that all building approval obtained before the court case is null and void, asking us to go and start fresh building approval processes from the beginning, with a new building plan reading date not earlier than the month of May, 2023. He gave us sixty days to start the process through KASUPDA, and we are ready to comply. We have visited KASUPDA to commence the fresh process of approval for our houses, including those that had prior approval, but KASUPDA officials said the forms are not yet ready.

“It is not yet sixty days based on the notice Kasupda gave us, and we didn’t even say we were not ready to abide by the obnoxious policy just to keep the peace. They are the people that are not even ready with the forms needed, yet this afternoon the same Kaduna State government, through the same KASUPDA, invaded Gbagyi Villa and started demolition of houses, if not that we took our lives into our hands and resisted with the support of youths from the other communities around. Though they still vowed to come back for the demolition exercises.

“See now, an innocent law-abiding woman, managing her BP, had been sent to her untimely grave! Why? Why? Why? Must APC just be about inflicting unbearable pains on the masses?” he concluded.

It’s of note that at the beginning of the tenure of El-rufai in 2015, he invaded Gbagyi Villa and vowed to demolish the over 3,500 houses and 40 churches already built in the community. The landlord association took the matter before a court of competent jurisdiction and won the case after about seven years in court. Also, many organizations, both within and outside the country, including but not limited to Amnesty International, intervened on the side of the community. Even the House of Representatives committee also intervened on behalf of the community. But unfortunately, this is happening again at the end of the tenure of El-rufai, provoking the unprovoked peaceful people of Gbagyi Villa a few days before handing over, when the government is supposed to sue for peace considering the tension in the country.