John Shiklam in Kaduna
Kaduna state governor, Mallam Nasir El-Rufai, has declared that there was no going back on recovering the land belonging to Kaduna Polytechnic which was encroached upon.
There had been controversy over the area, popularly known as Gbagi Villa, belonging to the By-Pass Campus of the institution for a couple of years following alleged construction of houses on the school land.
The school has been having a running battle with the over 3000 residents of the area who allegedly encroached on the land with the residents claiming that they acquired the land legally.
The authorities of the school had approached El-Rufai to help recover the land when he initiated a programme of recovering schools and hospital land illegally taken by some people.
The governor who visited the community along with the rector of the institution, Dr. Mohammed Bello, after examining the site plan and other documents, said any building illegally erected on the school land would be pulled down.
He described the situation as a tragedy, noting that Kaduna Polytechnic was allocated land nearly 40 years ago for the purpose of establishing school of mining engineering.
According to him, 70 per cent of the land had been encroached upon by squatters and such illegality should not be tolerated.
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