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 Daily
Independent Online.
* Wednesday, July 14, 2004.
Osomo to El-Rufai: You can’t
withdraw C-of-O
By Don Bassey
Correspondent, Abuja
Housing
and Urban Development Minister Mobolaji Osomo has disagreed with her
Federal Capital Territory (FCT) counterpart Nasir el-Rufai over his
reported recall of all certificates of land titles in Abuja and other
parts of the capital territory.
With her
input, the last may not have been heard on the controversy over the
withdrawal of the certificates, even as the Federal Capital Territory
Ministry denied the report last week.
Osomo,
speaking in Abuja on Tuesday at this year’s ministerial press briefing,
said she would, however, parley with El-Rufai to persuade him to reverse
the policy as it would be impossible to contain the chaos likely to
emanate if the decision were allowed to stand.
El-Rufai
announced penultimate Thursday that he was invoking the powers delegated
to him by President Olusegun Obasanjo under the FCT Act and Sections
9(1), 9(2) and 42(2)(d) of the Land Use Act to withdraw all 20, 000
Certificates of Occupancy (C-of-Os) ever issued in the history of the
territory.
He also said
all other offers of land, estimated at about 30,000 plots, would need to
be accepted by title-holders, payments effected by holders and C-of-Os
issued by the FCT administration within a nine-month period of
re-certification for those in the Federal Capital City (FCC) and 18-month
for those in the other parts of the territory.
The exercise
is tagged “Certification and Re-issue of C-of-Os in the FCT”.
But faulting
El-Rufai’s position, Osomo said withdrawing the C-of-Os would lead to
chaos in all sectors of the economy.
Her words:
“So much depends on these C-of-Os. Some have been used as collaterals for
bank loans while some financial institutions financed the erection of
structures based on the evidence of possession of a C-of-O. We’ll have a
dialogue with the FCT minister on the matter to arrive at an acceptable
solution. There are a lot of implications in withdrawing C-of-Os duly
issued. The confusion in the economy would be immense”.
Osomo also
reacted to reports that the Federal Capital Development Authority (FCDA),
a parastatal of the FCT ministry, plans to demolish some Federal Housing
Authority (FHA) estates in parts of the territory for failing to meet
standards of the Abuja Master Plan. She said doing so would lead to
economic waste.
“What I have
to say is that both the FCDA and the FHA are establishments of the same
Federal Government. They all have the same father. The job of FCDA is to
do a master plan. Every development in the FCT must get FCDA’s approval
but the FCDA should not wait for a whole estate to be developed and for
third parties to have invested before going to demolish. They should nip
illegal or improper development in the bud ”, she said.
On one of
such estates - Lugbe - located in Phase 3 of the Abuja Master Plan, Osomo
said it would be ridiculous for the FCDA to demolish it having issued a
C-of-O to the FHA a couple of months back.
“The Lugbe
FHA has over 3, 000 residents. A C-of-O was recently issued to FHA by the
FCDA. The FCDA should get up, go round and see buildings as they are built
rather than wait for them to be completed and third parties have invested
before demolishing”.
El-Rufai had,
on an Abuja-based FM station (Rhythm 96), described FHA estates as a
blight on the Abuja Master Plan and vowed to give them the same treatment
given to other unbefitting structures in the FCC.
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