Lagos residents urge court to stop sale of houses

The plaintiffs are: Mrs Chinwe Abara, Mr Leonard Agbibama, Mallam Ibrahim Abdul, Mr Samuel Obi, Alhaji Haliru Gandu and Mr Cliford Atakere.
The residents are seeking an order to invalidate the sale and restrain their pending ejection from the property.
The suit marked FHC/L/CS/201/2009 was filed before Justice Ibrahim Buba.
The defendants in the suit  include: the Minister of Environment, Housing and Urban Development; the Chairman Implementation Committee on Alienation of Federal Government Landed Property; and the Attorney General of the Federation.
Others are the Federal Ministry of Lands, United African Property Development Company Plc; Bank of Industry and the Transit Village Development Company Ltd.
Counsel to the plaintiffs Mr Dan Takon told the court that the purported sale of the said property to the 5th and 7th defendants is unlawful.
He noted that it did not comply with the stipulated mode of implementation of the federal government privatisation policy and monetisation programme initiated in 2005.
He said the plaintiffs who have lived on the said properties for over 30 years as government workers, had the right of first refusal before same could be offered to a third party.
The plaintiffs averred that they were forced to drop their initial move to sue government after being threatened by individuals who claimed to be operatives of the Department of State Security Service.
They averred that they had already obtained loans with the expectation that they would be given the opportunity to retain their respective quarters just as it was done for many civil servants.
The plaintiffs are therefore, seeking an order, compelling the 1st and 2nd defendants to issue to them letters of offer in furtherance of the government approved guidelines for the alienation of the federal government property.