2 FCT Directors, 5 Others Face Charges Over Land Racketeering

No fewer than two directors and five others in the Land department of the Federal Capital Territory Development Authority (FCDA) and the Department of Development Control (DDC) have been indicted by the police on allegations of land speculation and racketeering. 

According to the police, the indicted persons will soon be charged to court.

The development is coming at a time when the minister of the FCT, Nyesom Wike, has vowed to eliminate land speculators and restore the nation’s capital master plan.

Already, scores of demonstrators and experts in land administration who bemoaned the activities of land speculators and racketeering in the city, have thrown their weight behind the minister.

Wike had specifically warned land speculators that a new sheriff was in town. “And those doing land marketing, the period for that is over.”

The police are specifically pressing charges of criminal conspiracy, forgery, obtaining by false pretense and impersonation.

This development is a fall out of an investigation by the police over the ownership tussle between an engineering firm, Cona Engineering and Technical Services Nigeria Limited and one Yusuf Daniel Ogwu over a piece of land located at plot 1308 Cadastral Zone A09 Guzape District Abuja.

The company had mobilised to site for construction activities before Yusuf Daniel Ogwu surfaced with the said  R of O claiming to be the original owner of the land.

However, available title documents showed that by virtue of the Certificate of Occupancy granted to Jamila Saleh Hassan on June 6, 2007 (file No: 20400), she became the beneficial owner of plot 1308 Cadastral Zone A09 Guzape District, Abuja.

That Jamila Saleh Hassan, through an irrevocable and registered Power of Attorney donated the above plot to Sunday Benjamin Egele sometime in June 2014.

However, Sunday Benjamin Egele through a power of Attorney, donated the same property to Cona Engineering and Technical Services Limited, in December 2018.