By Okey Ikechukwu

With Gen. Abdulsalami Abubakar as Chairman, Centenary City Plc. is one national project that is doing everything possible to live up to the initial notion of it as a legacy project that came with the celebration of 100 years of the amalgamation of the Northern and Southern Protectorates of Nigeria. This was conceived and unveiled in the Nigerian Centenary Document as a brand new City to be carved out of the Federal Capital Territory and developed on virgin land. The city is to be patterned after such modern ‘smart’ new Cities as Songdo- among others – with great economic impact on the countries where they are located. The strong parallels to be drawn here are the impact of cities like Dubai, Monaco, Shenzhen, Singapore and Songdo on the overall economic and cosmopolitan profile of the nations concerned.

The developer of the new city, Centenary City Plc., has fortunately been working with templates that guarantee both a seamless flow of activities leading to the final emergence of the city, as well as a compensation and resettlement programme for the landowners that will avoid the usual controversies often associated with compensation and relocations. The initial mischief, peddling of false information and the attempt to build a career out of spurious protests have all given way to a quiet and sustained engagement that all the parties concerned are looking at with confidence. The Centenary City is the official counterpoise to the Eko Atlantic City in Lagos. Both are the two special economic cities designated as free zones by NEPZA. As a major national project, it was all woven into the centenary celebrations and offered to Nigerians as a powerful catalyst to stimulate investment – with multi-layered positive impact on the economy and the people.

Knowing the controversies that have consistently trailed practically all previous compensation programmes in the country, especially for the original inhabitants of Abuja, Centenary City Plc. deployed dialogue and patient consultations to avoid any hiccups. The clarification given early in the day by the Managing Director about the entire compensation package was difficult to fault or reject. It showed a two-pronged drive that combined cash payment for the crops and resettlement of the displaced landowners in houses built for them by Centenary City Plc. at its own cost. The payment to the landowners covers the crops and economic trees on their land, while the resettlement will provide adequate land for the buildings and other facilities to be developed by the Centenary City Plc. for their relocation to even better developed living conditions. Under the guidance of the FCDA, Centenary City Plc. will build adequate housing with infrastructure for the displaced landowners.

To ensure a scientifically verifiable basis for the deterring eligibility for compensation, the FCDA authorities did a biometric capture of all the affected communities, matching facial recognition and fingerprint scan of persons who are seven years of age and above. So far, most of the 671 beneficiaries identified for compensation have been settled. Some had no title Deed, no C of O, etc., while others had only letters of allocation and nothing more. Today, they have not only been paid, or are scheduled to be paid, for land they did not really own, but are among those to be resettled in new and better houses very soon.

The hope and concern of most observers is that Centenary City Plc. will maintain the trajectory it has so far established, keep its costs within reason and present a development model that many real estate investors can emulate in future. A comparative evaluation of its figures, against the ones supplied by officials at the FCT Ministry for major aspects of work in the City, shows very startling contrasts. The cost of land acquisition at the resettlement site, which was put at nearly two hundred and fifty million Naira (231, 481, 481. 48) was sorted out at the cost of about sixty five million Naira (N65m). As against the five billion Naira (N5,000,000,000) demanded for the access road to the Resettlement Site, the City Management will spend about one hundred million Naira (N100,000,000). The costs for engineering infrastructure within the resettlement site and the housing units for the resettlement of the landowners were also reduced by over 50% by Centenary City Plc.

If we take these projections as index of the cost profile of all projects executed by the Ministry, then the projections are alarming beyond words. Even the most expensive of the alternative evaluations from independent, and reputable, establishments for the same Centenary City project was less than 50% of the evaluation form the Ministery. Today the combined job, which the Ministry wanted to do at the cost of 16 billion Naira (16bn), is being carried out for less than six billion Naira; and with possibility of making some savings.  It is confounding, for instance, that the cost of design of the resettlement scheme was put at over 700 million Naira (N700, 076, 173.50). What percentage of the project cost should anyone who is informed in the building industry expect of a project the design (alone) of which costs some three million Dollars?

Today everything seems to be on course. General Abubakar is Chairman of the Board, the legal standing of the body is not in doubt and the Statutory Audit Committee is in place, and Akintola Williams and Deloitte are involved. The first AGM set the tone for everything, going forward and matters have gone quite far on all core governance issues. There are no worries about possible legal issues arising today. It is a Free Trade Zone and any mischief  from those who may want to refer to the Land Use Act have the ruling of Justice Yusuf Halilu of the FCT High Court to contend with. The ruling says the Act does not apply to the FCT. It vests all lands in a state on the state government to hold in trust for the people, while Section 49 of the Act specifically excludes the application of its provisions to title land held by the Federal Government.

Of course the Centenary City project has had its controversies. Within government, those who tried to ‘domesticate‘ it by taking violent possession of projects connected with it (which they hoped to execute at phenomenally high costs) were pitted against those who focused on delivering the modern, private sector-driven template on which it was conceived. With victories and losses now looming clearly for ll concerned parties, and as the project is now getting unto an even keel, a newspaper advert controverted everything good that Centenary City Plc. appeared to be saying about itself. The advertisement appeared on Tuesday, January 13, as well as January 14. Readers saw that the advert came under the platform of Anti-Corruption Network and was ‘signed‘ by its Chairman, Otunba Dino Melaiye.

But it was all a lie. The Director of Administration of Anti-Corruption Network promptly wrote to dissociate the Network from the publication. It was not authored, released or signed by Melaiye or the organization. Since then, no one has come to revalidate the claims made in the publication, or taken Anti-Corruption Network to task on the advertisement. Post May 29, 2015, the rift between the winners and losers again found its way into the media. This time it came in the form of a supposedly informed, and even alarmed comment, about how the former Minister nearly lost his job because of the Centenary City.

Today, the efforts of the City Management have paid off, as friendship and understanding have replaced suspicion and misdirected anger, among all stakeholders. This is a commendable development, because the developers rejected the initial repeated advice of some those who felt that they should adopt a hardline, and legally correct, position by showing their papers and using force to deal with everyone. They took the wise step of calling everyone to sit round a table and present all their issues, as a hardline position would have showed both insensitivity and created more problems than it could have possibly solved. The truth of the assurances given by the Federal Government in December 2013, that the Centenary City project would not commence unless adequate compensation was paid to the original inhabitants and other property owners on the site, is a reality today.

One of the most critical resolution meetings at the time was held at the palace of the Sa’Peyi of Garki, Alhaji Usman Nga Kupi. It was at this meeting that many people discovered, to their consternation, that they were being misled by one man who was then working with a faction of the Original Inhabitants Development Association of Abuja (OIDA). Once the compensation package and all the issues around it were tabled and explained, the people became better informed. It was after this meeting that the Village Head of Baruwa Village, Monday Kogi, among others, apologised to the Sa’Peyi for: (1) complaining about the amount he received at the commencement of the compensation payments, (2) speaking to journalists without getting all the facts and (3) for going to the press without first bringing his complaints to the traditional ruler.

This particular meeting was a landmark one, as many who came expecting that ‘government people‘ will just talk down on them and tell when to vacate their places of abode were pleasantly surprised. They sat down with the FCDA, and the Managing Director of Centenary City Plc. as equal stakeholders to iron things out. No one was hurried for time and the meeting was able to resolve the harvest of complaints arising from the protest of villagers at the beginning of compensation by the FCDA and the Centenary City Plc. A handful of the landowners who came for this meeting with advertised protest, which a casual observer could read as indicating they had been ripped off by the authorities, now understood the intentions and actions of government, shredded their posters and relaxed.

It is curious, for instance, that some of the misguided land owners who initially complained that the amount being paid to them individually was not commensurate with what they expected, found out that they were totally mistaken. Taking the specific case of Mr. Monday Kogi, this gentlemen complained about receiving less than N150,000, whereas he was expecting to be paid N1.5 million. Meanwhile, he was penciled down to be paid a total of N1.6 million as his entitlement, and not the N1.5 million he was expecting. One other thing that emerged from this encounter was that several issues were badly mixed up by trouble makers to fuel confusion among the landowners. As the facts emerged, the people were sobered by the realisation that the FCDA had actually been very generous to the landowners in the compensation package offered.

It was over a year ago that that the Sa’Peyi urged his people to beware of troublemakers, as well as fake “farmers who come in through the window” to cause confusion. With the facts before everyone, he urged his people to accept their compensation payments and also asked the FCDA and the Managing Director of Centenary City Plc. to maintain good faith in all their subsequent dealings with the people; and to also review any genuine cases of underpayment in the interest of equity and justice.

Taking account of the military barracks, quarry sites, natural features, other private property and roads on the original site of 1,264 hectares, the estimated land for farming on the site is no more than 400 hectares. With the proposed compensation of N319 million, this comes to nearly N800,000 per hectare. This is arguably one of the highest recorded such compensation per hectare in the FCDA. That is when you take into account the location, economic value and originally projected time for developing such and similar areas around Abuja.

It is easy to believe that the Centenary City Project will be a major national success story. Following the incorporation of the Special Purpose Company (SPC) that will promote and drive the investment in the city, a total of 19 companies subscribed to the company’s Articles and Memorandum of Understanding; having met the initial capital call (of not more than USD5 million and no less than USD250, 000). These 19 firms as such became its foundation shareholders. The Board of Directors of the company was inaugurated by President Goodluck Jonathan in October 2013 with the following members: General Abdulsalami Abubakar, (Chairman), Mr. Victor Udeh, Mr. Monabee Mitee, Dr. Pamela Obaze, Mr. Olatunde Ayeni, Mr. Adetokunbo Kayode (SAN), Mr. Ugochukwu Nkwocha, Mr. George Marks, Mr. Hani Tanois Saliba, representative of the Federal Capital Territory Administration (FCTA), representative of the Federal Ministry of Industry, Trade & Investment.

Jonathan’s words: “Were the Land Use Act meant to apply to the FCT, the original inhabitants would have been granted deemed grant to remain on their land”.

As an initiative of the Federal Government to commemorate the centenary celebration of Nigeria, the Centenary City covers a total of 1,200 hectares of land located on the Kuje side of the Umaru Yar’Adua Expressway (Airport Road). Under the project, 20 percent of the plots are earmarked for residential houses while 80 percent is for mixed use and commercial purposes. The FCTA would maintain five percent equity share in the project. What needs to happen now is for all concerned parties to focus not just on the goals of the Centenary City Plc. but, even more importantly, on the fate and fortunes of those affected by its initial teething problems. With General Abubakar as Chairman and Buhari as President, it is unlikely that anything untoward would be allowed to thrive.

• Ikechukwu, mni, a leadership and communication consultant, is resident in Abuja.