The new policy of the minister of Federal Capital Territory, Nyesom Wike is causing fears and concerns on the alleged plans by the FCTA to issue C of O’s for Mass housing projects and recovery of land use contraventions fee in the FCT.
The new policy may open floodgate of the fresh litigation against FCTA and some of these private real estate developers as there are a lot of pending cases against FCTA and some of these Private estate developers that are unresolved.
One of the residents in Abuja, Abubakar Umar who is reacting to the inauguration of a task force by the minister in Nov. 2023 on the issuance of Certificate of Occupancy for Mass housing developments and recovery of land use contravention fees in FCT, Abuja.
He expressed concern that this new policy is perceived by the residents of FCT as a smoke screen by some influential private real estate developers in cohort with some faceless personnel in FCTA to legitimize their title on lands that they forcibly grabbed from innocent Nigeria.
Abubakar Umar is worried that some of the members of the task force have vested interest in land administration which may lead to conflict of interest, wondering why previous policies aimed at sanitising land administration and the development of FCT, Abuja failed.
He noted that in 2012 FCTA initiated the land swap policy which enables the government to allocate lands to private real estate developers to provide infrastructure such as roads, water and electricity in exchange for a percentage of build able plots in the districts but majority of the developers turned around to sell off the plots without any benefits whatsoever to the government.
It would be recalled that while inaugurating the task force, the minister directed that all allottees or owners of the land or properties affected or interested shall pay N3,500,000 within four months starting from the date of the inauguration of the committee.
The minister was also said to have directed the task force to make provisions for land allottees in the Area Council’s who do not have a certificate of occupancy for their plots to enable them to get the land documents.
Umar however, appealed to the minister to reconstitute the committee with a view to incorporating members if the Civil Society Organisation and the general public for transparency and accountability.
He also urged the minister to ensure that all court orders or judgments concerning any land in the FCT are obeyed by the FCTA including the task force and the private developers of real estate.
Umar noted that before this task force could succeed all pending application for re-certifcation for Area Council allocation for which payments if the processing of C of O’s have been made to AGIS, should be processed and C of O’s issued to the applicants
