What is FCT administration doing to bring down high cost of rent?
We are doing so much to encourage the private sector to reduce the housing and infrastructural deficit in the FCT. The land swap is being done to see land as a resource to build 10 more districts. The FCT was conceptualised as a territory with 8,000sq/km, with a 250,000km radius Federal Capital city.

It was supposed to have been built within 25 years from the day it was established 35 years ago. Within that, we have 78 districts and eight sector areas. So far, we have done five districts and two sector areas within 35 years. Within that period, the issue of social and affordable housing has not been embedded in the planning aspect.

Of course, we borrowed the concept of the city from Brasilia in Brazil, where the satellite towns feed the city with a robust transportation system. But we did not even develop our transportation system until under President Goodluck Jonathan when we started the light rail project.

So, there is pressure on demand for housing in the city and that is why the cost of rent is so high. People have to pay two, three years rent in some cases which is not in line with global best practices. All over the world, you can pay for a week or a month to have a house. But here, because of the law of demand and supply, the cost is very high.

So is this how things will continue to be?

That is why we are encouraging the private sector to develop districts and build houses. We created new districts for social and affordable houses in Wasa and Gidandawa so that at least, that aspect of social and affordable housing that would serve the lower and middle cadre manpower of FCT would be addressed. This has not been addressed. That is why we have the preponderance of sprawling houses from Nyanya up to Keffi that are being built haphazardly. So, we are trying to address this issue and enforce urban and regional planning to create a minimal delight. Once you are able to produce more houses, more primary infrastructure for building houses under mass housing, you reduce the cost. We don’t want to regulate the cost of rent by legislation because we have seen that it has not worked in Lagos. Already, the cost is coming down because houses are being built. Some of the houses are empty and we are going to charge those houses that are empty and not being occupied by anyone. One, it is to stem the tide of corruption where some politicians buy such houses and keep. This has security implications. Already, the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission is working with us to make sure we know those who own the houses that are being kept in highbrow places in Abuja that are not being occupied.
We shall charge them, and we shall confiscate them. Our property tax will be introduced, it would be able to do away with all the irregularities because it is a whole gamut of problems we want to address by legislation and by investment drive.

How will you assess the performance of the Area Council Re-certification Scheme which your administration introduced?

The Area Council Re-certification Scheme has not succeeded the way I wanted. It is not 100 per cent successful, I must concede. That is why just recently, I held a meeting with all the stakeholders, the management of ACTRIS, the Federal Capital Development Authority, Survey and Mapping, AGIS as its Department of Land, Department of Mass Housing, and the Department of Urban and Regional Planning to make sure that all the statutory duties are performed and that there are no negative impacts on the implementation of Area Council Re-certification Scheme.

I discovered that there had been abuse of Area Council Title. Under the Land Use Act, Area Council is not allowed to give out lands, but because that responsibility had been delegated by my predecessors, it was abused in such a manner that there are levels of approvals. On one particular land, you will discover five allocations, four of which are fraudulently done.

For instance, a land officer that has been sacked or has no authority, but by carrying a printed letterhead, allocated land and so on and so forth. It is, therefore, difficult to reach a conclusion on who owns the land. Otherwise, it leads to litigation. So we are being careful to make sure we determine those who actually have the proper titles.

Of course, the Land Use Act does not recognise Area Council Title, as far as the FCT is concerned. There are traditional owners who are in other states, but not in the FCT. People have bought houses from the owners of the mass houses and they need titles to be able to provide urban and regional plan with the required coordinates. This is to enable those who have bought those houses to use their titles for collateral and so on and so forth, but they have not been given this opportunity. Take for example, Gwarimpa.

We gave the land to the Federal Housing Authority but we are the only ones that can give titles. People are yearning for titles and are ready to pay for them. We will generate huge money. And of course we have a comprehensive document in terms of layout that we are supposed to have, based on Abuja Master plan.

As of today, if you go to the Area Council, somebody may come and say there is a layout there. This has been happening in the last 20
years and I have the singular honour and privilege of this issue otherwise we would forget about FCT if we allow the surveyors and the fraudsters to go with the practice of coming out with titles and layouts that do not exist in the Abuja Master Plan.

Non-indigenes in Abuja have complained about discrimination. They claim that each time they try to resettle from one area to another; they are not given priority like the indigenes. Why are they treated differently?

Settlement or compensation has fundamental framework, when you look at it from the point of claim based on the enumeration that is carried out. You cannot come from Bauchi tomorrow and say you are laying claim to land in Abuja. If we do that, it will now become an openhanded situation, where people will come from Kano, Delta, Oyo and Rivers states and say they are laying claims. If you come and stay in Abuja, you are a citizen because this is an area where everybody is a citizen by virtue of the law that established the FCT.

But certainly, the original inhabitants have more claims of their privileges and rights for resettlement and compensation, not people who claim to have bought land from ignorant traditional rulers. You cannot buy land anywhere from traditional institution because as I said earlier, there is no municipal or traditional land ownership in FCT under the Land Use Act of the Federal Government as it relates to FCT.

So they cannot lay claim to compensation and resettlement as we are dispensing peculiar service to the original inhabitants who are there. Of course, their own claims have to be verified based on enumeration and the demography that we know. As for people coming, they must beware of fraudsters that will give them land and say district heads or village heads have sold land to them. The district heads are not aware; the middlemen are the ones responsible for this.

You see so many houses being built without development control approval, without any
title from the Federal Capital Territory. We cannot justify illegalities by doing something that is not given a stamp of authority or approval before it is done.
Adapted from Punch