By Ikechukwu Nnochiri, ABUJA

A High Court of the Federal Capital Territory sitting at Jikwoyi, on Wednesday, restrained the Federal Government from going ahead with its plan to demolish Trademore Estate, Lugbe, which was said to be a natural passageway of floods.

The court, in a ruling that was delivered by Justice Zubairu Mohammed, issued the order, following an ex-parte application that the estate filed through its team of lawyers led by Prof. Mike Ozekhome, SAN.

Specifically, the court, granted an interim injunction, restraining all the defendants in the matter and their employees, agents, officials, privies and all those purporting to be acting for them or deriving title from them, and any other persons howsoever and whomsoever called, from trespassing or further trespassing on, demolishing or further demolishing Trademore Estate, known as Plot 1981, Sabon Lugbe, Abuja.

Cited as 1st to 4th defendants in the motion marked: M/1162/2023, are; the Minister of FCT, the Federal Capital Territory Development Authority (FCDA), Abuja Metropolitan Management Council (AMMC) and the Abuja Municipal Area Council (AMAC).

The court ordered the parties to maintain status quo, pending the hearing and determination of the substantive suit the estate brought before it.

It will be recalled that a heavy downpour on June 23 had submerged 116 houses in the estate.

The development led to the declaration of the estate as a “disaster zone” by the Permanent Secretary of the FCTA, Mr Olusade Adesola on June 27.

Adesola had promised that the FCT administration would address the problem.

Likewise, the Executive Secretary of the FCDA, Malam Shehu Ahmed, announced the decision to demolish all structures on waterways across the nation’s capital.

Ahmed said that buildings within the estate were earlier marked for demolition on several occasions, alongside series of warnings and quit notices for the residents to vacate.

Shortly after the government rolled out bulldozers to commence the demolition exercise, a Civil Society Organization, the Salute Nigeria Initiative, SNI, led by its Director General, Ambassador Chielo Ojirika, took to the streets to protest the planned action which it said would render thousands of the residents homeless.

Meanwhile, in the Writ of Summons the Trademore International Holding filed before the court, it sought an order to stop the Defendants from “demolishing the estate with the buildings and appurtenances thereon; or evicting the occupants from the said Trademore Estate; or from trespassing on in any manner howsoever, into the Trademore Estate, Lugbe,Abuja; or from carrying out any further or fresh demolition exercise of any structures or buildings in the said estate; or in anyway interfering with the plaintiff’s exclusive right of ownership and possession of the said property.”

The Plaintiff maintained that the three major floodings that were experienced in the estate since it was built in 2007, were not caused by the residents, “but by acts of gross negligence occasioned by the Defendants; or through outright inaction by agents of the Federal Government, by refusing to implement any of the anti-flooding measures jointly devised and agreed upon at various meetings and through several correspondences by representatives of the Federal government and Trademore Holding International Ltd ( owners of theTrademoreEstate ).”

The Plaintiff further told the court that if the Defendants, through the Ecological Fund, had not built a very narrow carnal instead of a huge bridge to allow free passage of water coming from a now broken down and disused dam that runs through several adjoining settlements, coupled with several unstrained excavatory acts of other developers in the area, there would have been no incidence of flooding in the estate.

It, therefore, sought an interim order to halt the planned demolition exercise, pending the determination of the suit, a prayer that was granted by the court.

Justice Mohammed adjourned the matter till September 22, even as he ordered the service of the court order as well as other relevant processes in the suit, on all the Defendants.