News - Residents, official disagree over revocation of Abuja estate title

[TGD]

 A FRESH controversy may be brewing in the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), as some subscribers, under the aegis of Saraha-ProForm Estate Residents' Association, have called for a probe into what they called 'the dirty deals' associated with the revocation and the purported reallocation of Plot 67 Kafe District, Gawarimpa, Abuja, by the Department of Development Control.

Specifically, members of the association are the owners of the estate comprising 200 completed and furnished duplexes, among others, said to worth N160 billion but now under threat of demolition by the authorities.

But the Director, FCT Department of Development Control, Yahaya Yusuf, said what the developer of the controversial estate was brandishing was a copy of Accelerated Development Programme Allocation of 2005 which, according to him, has already been nullified.

The subscribers had, while reacting to a recent statement credited to

Yusuf, on behalf of the Abuja Metropolitan Management Council (AMMC), said the "wicked attempt by Yusuf to mislead members of the public and justify the illegality and corrupt practices perpetrated by his office and his associates over the contentious plot is not only ungodly but also fraudulent."

According to the statement issued in Abuja penultimate week and signed by Mr. Oluwasegunotta Ojo and Maureen Ibekwe, chairman and

secretary of the association, the residents alleged that Yusuf failed woefully to address the fundamental issues earlier raised by the aggrieved residents in their letter to President Goodluck Jonathan, the  FCT Minister, as well as other relevant authorities, which boarder on abuse of public office and corrupt practices on the part of some top officials members of the Department of Development Control, Land Department and Abuja Geographical Information System (AGIS).

In an interview with The Guardian at the weekend, Yusuf stressed the need for urgent government's intervention to address the housing deficit in the territory, among others.

He also advised members of the public interested in either developing plots of land or buying property in the territory to go through the right channel and urged them to clarify from the Lands Department whether such property were properly allocated.

He said members of the public should also clarify from the Department of Development Control whether there exists an approved plan.

Yusuf said contrary to public perception, the department was not set up to engage in indiscriminate removal of structures in the territory, but that it was within its purview to guard against the tendency of some developers to abuse the Abuja Master-Plan.

The director, who refuted insinuations that the department was not doing enough to control the menace of illegal building in the territory, pointed out that the government was only being lenient to see if some of such buildings could be integrated instead of outright removal.



The Guardian