Air Force Threatens to Demolish Illegal Structures on Its Land in Kwara
The Nigeria Air Force has threatened to use apply stringent measures against people encroaching its over 200 hectares of land located along Ilorin International Airport, Ilorin, Kwara state capital
Already, about 1000 illegal structures have been erected on the land and this development has been given the leadership of the air force a source of concern.
The Flag Officer Mobility Command of the Nigeria Air Force in-charge of Kwara, Niger, Delta, Bayelsa, Cross Rivers states, Air Vice Marshall Stephen Kpeletu Onu made this disclosure in Ilorin, Kwara state capital on Tuesday after the inspection tour of all the facilities at Air Force Mobility Command, Ilorin.
The visit took him to communication groups, Air Force primary school, medical center and air force barracks to assess the living conditions of men of the air force in the Mobility command in Ilorin.
According to him, ‘The position of the air force has never been antagonistic position against the people that had encroached the land because the land was duly acquired by the Nigeria Air Force”.
He said that, it was disturbing that, over the time the people had chosen that it is their state and started encroaching into it and we have been trying to use least available force to us to tell the people not to encroach the land.
‘However, we still using all the measures that are available to us to try to reduce people going to that place and whoever still in that place, it is still doing it illegally and it is not good if we start to use more stringent measures to get the people out of it and it is the major concern of the leadership of the air force to do something urgently about it now”.
On the multi million naira Hangar project at Ilorin International Airport, AVM Onuh said that, the leadership of the air force is more committed to its urgent completion in order to be of more benefit to the air force and the people of the state.
He said that, , “As a matter of fact, you will see that it is a gigantic project and it is also a capital intensive and you would also know that there are lots of issues that are struggling for meager resources and the leadership of the air force is doing its best to put the Hangar into functionality without further delay”.
AVM Onuh added that, ‘There is no doubt that, if the Hangar project is completed it would add values to the economic development of the country and that of the home state in particular because it would create employment opportunities for the people and also serves a maintenance platform for the repairing of aircrafts in the country.’.