LERE Olayinka, the Senior Special Assistant on Public Communications to the Minister of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Nyesom Wike, has warned the senator representing the FCT, Ireti Kingibe, to desist from frequent opposition to the minister’s actions.
Olayinka issued the warning while reacting to the senator’s comments on the enforcement of payment of ground rent in the nation’s capital.
“It is ridiculously embarrassing that a serving senator of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, whose duty is to make laws is ignorant of the provisions of Section 28, Subsections (a) and (b) of the Land Use Act.
“For the education of Senator Kingibe, Section 28, Subsections (a) and (b) of the Land Use Act provides that ‘The government may revoke a Statutory Right of Occupancy on the ground of; (a) a breach of any of the provisions which a certificate of occupancy is by Section 10 deemed to contain; and (b) a breach of any term contained in the Certificate of Occupancy,” Olayinka said.
The ICIR reported that FCTA sealed off the headquarters of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in the Wuse district of Abuja, including other private and public buildings such as the headquarters of the Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS), the Nigerian Security Printing and Minting Company, Nigerian Postal Service, and the Power Holding Company of Nigeria (PHCN)T on Monday, May 26.
The FCTA listed 4,794 properties which it said it revoked for non-payment of ground rent, some for over four decades.
Reacting to the development, Kingibe said the sealing of properties was executed outside the bounds of the law.
She argued that the sealing of properties over unpaid ground rent undermined livelihoods, eroded public trust in institutions, and threatened the fragile social and economic stability of the FCT.
She said as a senator, she would not turn a blind eye while residents were subjected to enforcement practices that “contravene established laws and compound their suffering”.
In his reaction, Wike’s spokesperson said there were conditions that must be met in land allocation and one of them was annual payment of ground rent.
“Now, is annual payment of ground rent not part of the terms contained in the certificate of occupancy? Or Senator Kingibe just chose to advertise her myopic attitude to anything Wike?”
Olayinka said Kingibe’s recent ‘diatribe’ against the FCT minister was a further advertisement of her ignorance of the Land Use Act “and penchant for seeking cheap political gains on every issue.”
Olayinka said Kingibe should rather have said that “land owners in the FCT have rights to refuse to pay necessary bills stated in the certificate of occupancy issued to them, and that when they so do, the government should simply pick samba and tambourine, and sing their praises.
“Now, if land allottees refused to pay ground rent for 10 to 43 years, Senator Ireti Kingibe will just look away if she were the FCT Minister?”
The ICIR reported that the revocation list, approved by Wike, includes a number of high-profile institutions and organisations, namely Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), Nigerian Television Authority (NTA), and the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN).
Others affected include Borno and Kaduna State Government lodges, Nigerian Security Printing and Minting Company, Nigerian Postal Service, and the Power Holding Company of Nigeria (PHCN)T
Despite President Bola Tinubu’s intervention, which stopped the revocation of the affected properties for 14 days, Wike has vowed that enforcement would proceed regardless of ownership, stressing that the government would act in line with established legal procedures.
Nanji is an investigative journalist with the ICIR. She has years of experience in reporting and broadcasting human angle stories, gender inequalities, minority stories, and human rights issues. She has documented sexual war crimes in armed conflict, sex for grades in Nigerian Universities, harmful traditional practices and human trafficking.