In a curious twist, the Enugu State Government today demolished the house of the architect who pulled down the Enugu airport fence on Wednesday 12 August.

The house was at Eziokwe Street in the Community Estate area of Trans-Ekulu, in Enugu East.

The demolition was reportedly carried out by officials of the Enugu Capital Territory Development Authority (ECTA).

The operation was said to have been supervised by ECTDA Chair, Mr. Joseph Onoh.

Vanguard newspaper quotes Mr. Onoh as saying that the house was standing on a water channel and needed to give way.

Coming days after Emejulu carried out demolition of federal airport fence, the social media lit up with speculations that this was a reprisal.

Onoh however denied that it was a retaliatory action by the State Government.

Emejulu in a statement denied that he was ever served notice of demolition nor told that his property stood on the waterline.

Emejulu had, on Wednesday 12 May, mobilized bulldozers to pull down a new airport fence being put up as part of the ongoing airport rehabilitation project.

He acted on the orders granted by Justice JLC Okibe of the Enugu High Court to execute a judgement order, he said.

Aviation Minister, Sen. Hadi Sirika, who inspected the damage yesterday however said that the Federal Government was going to prosecute the architect.

“He has given the government the opportunity to show how not to willfully destroy public asset belonging to over 200 million people,” Sirika said.

Govt. Bulldozers bore into shanties around airport land

ECTDA bulldozers also went into action today to pull down shanties that sprang up around the Akanu Ibiam International Airport Enugu.

The Agency confirmed the demolitions in a Tweet this evening.

They extended deep into Ukwu Oji Emene, near the airport and pulled down every shanty in sight.

Residents around the shanties however claimed that they had earlier received a pre-demolition notice from the Federal Ministry of Works and Housing.

Media Adviser to the Works & Housing Minister, Mr. Hakeem Bello, however, told Enugu Metro that the Ministry was not responsible for the operation today.

There were no incidents and everywhere was generally upbeat, as the airport is set to reopen in a fortnight as promised by Minister Hadi Sirika.

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