The Abuja govt officials, developers, private individuals’ connection

By Favour Nnabugwu

ABUJA is fast becoming a conundrum wrapped in mystery over land. This is the reason individuals, developers and public officers stake their lives for land in Abuja. Land in the FCT is an asset as valuable as diamond.

The FCT occupies about 8,000 square kilometres of land  with the Abuja city covering about 250 square kilometres of this. From the city centre to the satellite towns and other parts of the FCT, land is an asset that people die for.

A victim of land racketeering, who identified himself as Samuel Ikpodo, said he bought a piece of land in Kubwa through a staff member of Bwari Area Council and not long after, some officials came  to tell him the council would redesign the land.

Ikpodo said he was at first apprehensive about the twist in development, but, on a second thought, he became optimistic that he could be lucky to get a strategic piece of land after the redesign. Later, he was told he lost the land to the redesigning.

He said many Abuja residents had fallen victim to the corruption of some FCDA officials who connive with land racketeers to dupe and displace original land owners in Abuja.

A source told Abuja Bulletin the problem lies with the Abuja Geographic Information Systems, AGIS. “There are people within the system who have mastered the art of hacking into the system to create fictitious layouts as well as sell other people’s allocations.

The racketeers are like a cabal. A top official of the AGIS is the arrow head of the cabal in the FCT”, the source said. “As am l talking to you, some victims of the land racketeering have petitioned the FCT Minister over double allocation, redesigning of layouts and other corrupt practices for which most of them fell victim due to the assurance they had because of the involvement of some FCT officials”.

He mentioned the name officials who the FCT Minister, Senator Bala Mohammed, invited to a meeting in connection with the petition two Thursdays ago.

Mohammed was allegedly sad that issues of land administration probe have become a recurring decimal in the administration of the FCT as it has become a tradition for some FCTA officials to damn the consequences of being caught in the racketeering.

The minister was said to have expressed concern over the anomalies allegedly discovered in the  AGIS/ land department where land speculators had reportedly broken through the electronic system with alleged connivance of staff which include duplication of  allocations and obtaining C of Os ahead of genuine applicants.

The office of the minister is also allegedly inundated with court cases ranging from wrong revocation/allocation titles, undue delay in the processing of building plans and conflicting land use plans originating from AGIS and Urban and Regional Planning Department as well as land allocation in areas not due for infrastructural service and issues of fake layout in area councils.

From 1975, when the General Murtala Muhammed-led military junta mooted the relocation of the FCT from Lagos and the Justice Akinola Aguda panel recommended Abuja, to 1992 when General Ibrahim Babangida transferred the seat of power, Abuja land was no hot cake.

But soon after the relocation, an unrelenting regime of land grabs, land speculations and the primitive acquisition of Abuja land became the pastime of the political and business elite who used their connection to grab as much landed assets in the FCT as the human mind can imagine.

Land in Abuja has significantly appreciated in value since the 90s. Some plots of land in the FCT have appreciated by 10 times their initial value in the past five years.Real estate in Abuja is a booming business and one that holds many opportunities. This trend most likely will continue in years to come as the forces of demand and supply continue to push the prices of land and properties in Abuja up.

The contest of who grabs the biggest Abuja land and the near-demonic disposition of rich clients to pay outrageous fees for landed assets are the underlying reason for the high cost of land in the FCT.
Further investigations showed that some forged allocations papers were backdated and put in the sun to give the impression they were issued a long time ago while racketeers throng business centres opposite the council to perfect their papers for prospective victims.

Fraudsters also scan fake allocation papers and print them out in order to give the impression that the papers are not new as the Area Councils have not been allocating lands but trade in existing ones. So, a dealer that does not have a genuine old allocation paper can forge one, backdate it and create the impression that the paper had been in existence for a long time.

A surveyor, who spoke to our correspondent on the condition of anonymity, said, sometimes, private surveyors would go to virgin areas, discuss with indigenes and design a new layout.
For those who insist on seeing the land before payment, a land surveyor, Mr. Dan Osifo, warned that it does not guarantee  one will not be duped.

According to him, with a simple Ground Positioning System, one can easily locate any piece of land whether the allocation is genuine or not. “All that is required are the coordinates. Once you get two or three coordinates, you can locate any piece of land. The ability to locate a piece of land does not mean that the allocation is genuine”, he said.