Wike’s illogical ground for land revocation

All pundits in the FCTA affairs understood the ongoing pressure on owners of land allocations in the FCT by Barr Nyesom Wike, to be an unnecessary intimidation. It is not because the land owners breach any clause or condition clearly stated in the allocations or the provision of the Land Use Act which might likely be cited. The ground is nothing but a manufactured excuse, to unfairly acquire the lands for his allocations.

All the successive FCT ministers were confronted with the challenges of sorting for lands for allocation to torrents of applicants in the midst of very few or the absence of plots for allocation. The reason for the introduction of the Fifth Phase during the El-Rufa’i tenure was because the records showed that all the plots in Phase I to IV were completely allocated.

A former director of lands was once verbally directed by a new minister to source for plots in Phase I of the city for immediate allocation to the minister’s cronies. But he was told that all the plots were fully allocated. He was not satisfied with the response; therefore, he made a similar request to the director of AGIS. Meanwhile, the man from AGIS was waiting for an opportunity to impress the new minister. He therefore presented six plots spread across the Asokoro and Maitama Districts, all were vacant.

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The minister then summoned the director of lands and registered his displeasure to bring up the allocation letters for the plots. However, having got the details, the director of lands later returned to the minister with the land files containing all necessary documentation with records of old allocations on all six plots to very influential individuals.

The minister chose to remain honourable and let the sleeping dog lie and was saved from monumental embarrassment. Otherwise, his other option was to revoke the lands and damn the consequences, akin to the recent debacle between Rita Lori and Nyesom Wike that went viral. Depending on the disposition of any minister, he will have his like in the system to tango.

With due respect to the honourable minister being a lawyer, we wonder whether he read the content of any Letter of Offer of Land Allocation issued by the FCT Administration, to determine the validity of using the failure to pay the fees for Certificate of Occupancy as a ground for revocation. One doesn’t have to be a legal luminary to understand that that ground can never fly and is untenable. Any of the victims can easily overturn the revocation in any court of law.

It should be noted, that the FCT has its traditional procedure for revocation. Infrastructure must be provided to the neighbourhood for two years before revocation is contemplated. After that, the advertorial will be placed in national dailies with a six-month ultimatum. But despite the illogical ground, a weird and vindictive two-week ultimatum was issued by Wike.

If Wike wants to make the payments of the Certificate of Occupancy as a ground for revocation, he should include it in the letters of offers with such an ultimatum. But we haven’t seen such in any of the letters of offers issued by his administration. He will not because he is aware of the consequences to the beneficiaries of his allocations when he also leaves. What it means is that he is imposing strange orders to satisfy his immediate needs, yet maintaining the status quo in the modest traditional conditions in the letters of offer of FCT lands.

The provision of infrastructure is not the responsibility of those allocated lands but the government. There are still numerous layouts, where allocations were made, some for more than 20 years, yet infrastructures were not provided to the area. Even if the plot owners desire to develop, they cannot access them. In these circumstances, the government would be grossly unfair to demand huge payments for a Certificate of Occupancy.

It is instructive to know that in the year 2000, the premium on land charges was raised to N2,000 per square meter. Before that, it was only N200. When the concept of premium as a development levy for the provision of infrastructure in the FCT was introduced in 2009, it snowballed to between N10,000 and N18,000 per square meter, depending on the district. However, despite the collection, no infrastructure.

If the past is considered a school in which we learn how to approach the future, we would urge the honourable minister to reconsider his stand. There was a time when for those who failed to recertify, their titles were revoked by the FCTA. But the victims went to courts and retrieved their titles. However, that decision was immediately reversed as soon as that regime ended and a new regime came. The government must be sensitive to the plight of its people.