Minister of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Senator Bala Mohammed, has declared that more than 90 percent of all allocated plots of land in the Territory have not been developed by allottees.

Mohammed also remarked that since the creation of FCT, the aggregate development in the territory has not exceeded 25 percent, noting that the land swap scheme recently introduced by the FCT administration was meant to expedite infrastructure development. He assured that the land swap system will not encounter the same pitfalls as the mass housing policy which the Administration had utilised for housing development in the past decade.

The minister said based on the lessons learnt from the shortcomings of the mass housing system which took off 2003, the memorandum of understanding (MoU) which the FCTA signed with the land swap investors gave no room for the kind of technical and financial risks the Administration bore in the mass housing intervention. He noted that the main reason for the adoption of the land swap system is to narrow the gap between plots/housing demand and supply.

The land swap policy is a development initiative recently introduced by the FCT administration under which the administration would give land to investors in exchange for infrastructural development. It is meant to open up new districts where the private sector will be incentivised to provide the required infrastructure within the districts in exchange for 60 percent of buildable plots in the district, while 40 percent would be retained by the FCTA for allocation.

On the legality of adoption of the land swap intervention, the minister explained that the land swap intervention is predicated on sound legal and institutional frameworks. In Nigeria, the land tenure system is regulated by the Land Use Act which, based on the country’s legal jurisprudence, has been described as a constitutional legislation with overriding capacity. Under the Act, all lands are vested in the Governor, and in the case of the FCT in the Minister of the FCT.