400 ‘illegal’ occupants of railway properties seek regularisation

Over 400 illegal occupants of properties belonging to the Nigerian Railway Corporation, (NRC) have sought regularization.

The Managing Director of Railway Property Management Company Limited, Mr. Timothy Zalanga disclosed this at the weekend in Lagos during the commissioning and handing over of the reconstruction of one of the corporation’s quarters razed by fire two years ago and a police station.

Zalanga explained that the corporation’s property management company has left no stone unturned in ensuring that it recovers properties illegally occupied, saying it has deployed a taskforce in Kaduna, Jos and Gombe states.

“We have been pushing to ensure we take the sites from them or we get them to regularise and pay a penalty for the period they have been staying and we got a taskforce that is going round the country in Kaduna, Jos and Gombe to ensure that people are paying what they are to pay.

“In the three places we have sent the taskforce, we have gotten over 400 new applications that have applied for regularization,” he said.

Also, he stressed that the task force has been empowered to demolish structures that do not align with the corporation’s building development plan.

The Managing Director of NRC, Engr. Fidet Okhiria noted that the reconstructed quarters would be rented out, adding that it would serve as a commercial service which would boost the corporation’s revenue.

He said, “It is the habit of the railway to lease lands to the private sector but the board members said we should also be producing something because a time will come, there will be no empty land to lease, so we should have something that will give money.”

Managing Director, Lane Limited, the company that reconstructed the quarters, Alhaji Murtala Sani, explained that the building contains 48 shops, seven self-contained and bedroom flat apartments.