By Daniel Tyokua
Officials of the Federal Capital Territory Administration (FCTA) have said 443 estate developers in the territory are yet to fulfil the approved government conditions.
The Senior Special Assistant on Public Communications and Social media, Lere Olanyika with Director Land in FCT, Chijioke Nwakwoeze disclosed this during a press briefing in Abuja, Friday.
They disclosed that since inception of the FCT mass housing programme in 2000 till date, only two out of the 445 Mass Housing allocations granted have successfully met the terms and conditions.
According to them, a new operational framework for titling of Mass Housing and Sectional Interests has been developed to fast-track the exercise in line with the Minister’s vision to restore confidence in the administration of lands in the FCT.
Olayinka also disclosed that reforms have been introduced to bring sanity and curb land racketeering in the territory.
According to him, allottees have been given only two years to develop land given to them or be revoked.
He said effective from April 21, 2025, reforms in areas like conditions of grant of Statutory Right of Occupancy, contents of the Statutory Right of Occupancy Bill, contents of Letter of Acceptance/Refusal of offer of grant of Right of Occupancy, titling of Mass Housing and sectional interests, as well as regularization of Area Council Land documents will commence.
According to him, deadline for payment of bills, rents, fees and charges is not specified in the Statutory Right of Occupancy bill, and no penalty for failure to make payment promptly.
He said previous irregularities in the land administration system caused delay in revenue receivable due to non-collection of Right of Occupancy (R-of-O) and non-payment of bills, slower pace of infrastructural development, sustained land speculation and racketeering.
While huge expenses have been incurred by the FCT Administration through repeated advertisements and publications notifying the public on the need for collection of R-of-O and timely payment of bills and charges
On lands previously allocated by Area Councils, the law stipulates that all lands in the FCT are urban land. It therefore becomes necessary that all land documents issued by the Area Councils are considered for regularisation to statutory titles in line with relevant statutes.
Recall that in 2006, the Zonal Land, Planning and Survey offices of the six Area Councils were directed to submit all Area Council allocation lists, layouts, files and registers to Abuja Geographic Information System (AGIS)/Lands Department, and this was done by the Area Councils.
However, currently, out of the 261,914 Area Council land documents submitted for regularization, only 8,287 have been vetted, out of which only 2,358 were cleared, validated and regularized to statutory titles. The 8,287 were vetted from 2006 to 2023 (17 years), and this represents just 3.2% of the total land documents submitted for vetting and regularization as at today, the FCT Administration is still left with 253,627 submissions in its database.
