Reacting to the accusations Runsewe emphasized that, since the Arts and Crafts Village was closed down, Abuja residence have had some level of peace.

Walter Okaegbu, Abuja

Traders in the Abuja Arts and Crafts Village are now scattered across the city of Abuja as a result of the continued closure of the arts and craft centre by the Nigeria Police, other security agencies and officials of the National Council for Arts and Culture (NCAC).

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Some are now roadside artists, while others have found their way to hotels, where they exhibit their works, while the majority of them are stranded and have nowhere to go.

The arts and culture village, located in the capital city’s central area, is the permanent site of the NCAC. Last February the police raided the place and alleged that they found firearms and substances suspected to be marijuana there.

However, there has been uneasy calm in FCT as some shop owners insist on their right to access their property within the village. One of them is Lawal Shuaibu Mohammed, the secretary of African Arts and Culture Heritage Association.

According to him, in 2009 they were allocated space to build 35 shops in the Arts and Crafts Village on a public-private partnership build-operate-transfer basis for 25 years, and they constructed up to 21 shops.

By 2013, while the shops were still under construction, the then minister of the federal Capital Territory, Bala Mohammed, decided to transfer ownership of the village from the FCT to the Federal Ministry of Information and Culture, without their knowledge.

Muhammed and his colleagues said they went to court and instituted a case against the minister of the FCT, the Federal Capital Development Authority, the NCAC, and the minister of tourism and culture as defendants in the suit at the Federal High Court, Abuja. The court issued an order that restrained NCAC from evicting them and also restrained them from continuing the development after 21 shops had been built.

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He explained that when Otunba Olusegun Runsewe was appointed as the director-general of NCAC in March 2017, he locked the rear gate, which according to their lease agreement with the FCT, they were allowed to open as a back entranced that leads to Silverbird Galleria.

He said the 2013 court order was re-issued twice, but Runsewe flouted them. Mohammed asked questions about where payment went since NCAC took over. According to him, in 2014 they were given an allocation by the FCT, but when Runsewe came he said the certificate of occupancy of the place belonged to him.

“We confirmed this with the ICPC. From then he asked us to pay arrears of three and half years. Our members, owners of over 100 shops, paid three and a half years arrears to a non-government account, instead of TSA, which we paid to when we were under the FCT,” Mohammed said.

Reacting to the accusations Runsewe emphasized that, since the Arts and Crafts Village was closed down, Abuja residence have had some level of peace.

“When I resumed as the DG of NCAC, I believed that posterity would not forgive us all when we go outside the country, see the best and allow the worst to be in Nigeria. We went to Arts and Craft Village between April and May 2017. We met with the tenants and said we need to upgrade the place to international standard and they were all happy,” he said.

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However, he said, the tenants were supposed to “pay N46,000 per year in Central Area, I told them to pay the outstanding but to start a new rate by July 2017 and that the place should be able to maintain itself.”

Runsewe added that government did not give NCAC money for the place because it was not captured in the budget so NCAC had to source the service of facility managers who helped to put the place in proper shape.

The NCAC boss disclosed that the village caught fire and at least 30 shops were affected. According to him some of the tenants accused NCAC of being responsible for the fire while the police report indicated that the fire started in Shop 47.

The NCAC DG told the police that the Arts and Craft Village was becoming unbearable because over 300 people slept there, while the Abuja master plan does not permit people sleeping in the market, which was why he invited the police and DSS to evacuated them.

Runsewe added that some tenants had five to 10 shops and turned themselves into mini landlords. He said one of them was paying NCAC N40,000 but had rented out the same premises for N3 million, while some who paid N46,000 rented out for N250,000.