WARNING: This is Version 1 of my old archive, so Photos will NOT work and many links will NOT work. But you can find articles by searching on the Titles. There is a lot of information in this archive. Use the SEARCH BAR at the top right. Prior to December 2012; I was a pro-Christian type of Conservative. I was unaware of the mass of Jewish lies in history, especially the lies regarding WW2 and Hitler. So in here you will find pro-Jewish and pro-Israel material. I was definitely WRONG about the Boeremag and Janusz Walus. They were for real.
Original Post Date: 2010-06-09 Time: 12:00:02 Posted By: News Poster
By Nasir Imam
On 15 April, 2010, Minister of Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Senator Bala Mohammed, suspended further allocation due to what he described as gross abuse of delegated authorities, deficiencies and misuse of public trust in recent allocation of land for residential, commercial and mass housing scheme.
Mohammed also stressed that all forms of transactions, payments and transfers in respect of plots allocated from January 2007 to date, including Development Control approvals will also be suspended pending conclusion of the probe, adding that the move does not translate to revocations.
The minister further stressed that there were files scams in Abuja Geographic Information System (AGIS) and Land Department where some land speculators have been able to break through the electronic system with active connivance of AGIS staff to duplicate genuine allocations and obtain Cof O ahead of genuine applicants.
Prior to the establishment of the AGIS by former minister, Mal. Nasir el-Rufai, the worst fraudster in the city was one ‘Engineer Success’ who was very crafty in forging certificates of occupancies for Abuja plots, using different names than the real person the authority allocates the plot to, and then sold to unsuspecting buyers. A simple search on the status of the plot and the real owner in the land registry prior to the transaction shall reveal the authentic owner, one would then know whether he is dealing with the right or wrong party, and then make him decide on whether to continue the transaction or halt.
The recertification exercise and the establishment of the AGIS by the computerization of all land records in order to ease all those processes was seen as the solution to all these unwholesome behaviours, but that solution creates other sets of dangerous fraudsters than the ones previously known. For it is no longer forging certificates and using different names, but cloning from the system by those with that privilege information and maintaining the names on the allocation and selling to plot buyers without the knowledge of the real owner.
When Daily Trust visited the AGIS office after the suspension of land allocation, it had affected the customers movement to the place as many members of the public who have land papers to process have since stopped going there.
But twelve days after he announced an indefinite suspension of land allocation and processing in the FCT over what he described as gross abuse of delegated authorities, deficiencies and misuse of public thrust in recent allocation of land for residential, commercial and mass housing process in the city, the FCT Minister, on April 27, 2010, announced the lifting of the ban and appointed Senator Sa’idu Dansadau to head a 12-member Ministerial Investigation Committee on Lands Administration in the Federal Capital Territory.
The fact is all the FCT ministers have interest in lands allocation and depending on their disposition, to garner a lot for themselves and their cohorts, or to ensure justice and equitable distribution, they choose the suitable staff and make enabling policies.
Just as the present minister set up a committee to curb the increasing activities of fraudsters, so did Dr. Modibbo found it a matter of necessity, which culminated into a full blown probe involving the Senate, restoration of the powers of the lands department and the appointment of the Director of Lands and those deemed capable of making him achieve his objectives.
The result was the discovery of more than one thousand fake allocations with their roots traced to these dubious casual staff of the AGIS. With these so called staff now at large who then can guarantee the safety of the land information in their possession? As many times they got arrested for forgeries they got bailed without being charged to court and allowed to continue duping others.
The more effort is made by the authority and well meaning citizens to check the menace of land racketeering, the more new methods were devised by the criminals for cheating on innocent and unsuspecting citizens, at the same time creating more confusion in the system.
As a result of advanced sophistication of land racketeering, and due to the fact that the amount of money involved is usually very large, these days before making transaction on any land in Abuja one must go well beyond the normal search in the AGIS by exploring all other avenues and leaving no stone unturned before releasing his money.
Otherwise after investing ones fortune, he will experience the worse shock of his life when despite the confirmation of the search report from the authority prior to the transaction, he became embarrassed by another party much later, perhaps at the point of transferring the ownership to another party, seeking building plan approval or even after successfully obtaining the approval while on the actual construction.
However, chairman of the Ministerial Committee, Sen. Saidu Dansadau, while presenting the report of the committee to the FCT minister on Friday June 4, 2010, said only 485 plots have been fully developed out of the 18,445 plots allocated between 2007 and April 2010 representing 2.41% of the total allocations.
He however disclosed that there are over 6,000 allottees, whose titles were revoked on ground of overriding public interest are awaiting alternative allocations.
Sen. Dansadau said a total of 18.445 plots were allocated during the period under review, 12, 816 plots were allocated during the last five months of former FCT minister, Mal. Nasir el-Rufai’s administration.
He said 1,040 plots were allocated during Dr. Aliyu Modibbo Umar’s administration as FCT minister, while 4,589 plots were allocated during the tenure of Sen. Adamu Aliero.
He said the issue of multiple allocations, forgery and falsification of records has become a behemoth of notorious proportion, revocation of plots without regard to due process, especially non-compliance with section 28 of the Land Use Act and complicity of some FCT officials were responsible for tis menace.
He said during the period under review the Land Use Allocation Committee was just a symbolic body and was hardly effective, hence the need for an effective committee to advise the FCT minister on matters of land administration in the FCT.
“Incomplete computerised system could be worse than the manual system, hence the need for an FCT Civil Service Commission in addition to a more personnel management framework to ensure commensurate reward for hardworking staff as well as adequate punishment for erring officials.”
He said most mass housing scheme projects during the period under review were not subjected to any guidelines while lease agreement were not respected by both parties to the lease, thus giving land speculators upper hand in the scheme at the expense of genuine property developers.
Giving land directly to genuine developers will bring down the cost of the houses for the benefit of the middle and low income earners.
Receiving the report, FCT Minister, Sen. Bala Mohammed, thanked the committee for their diligence and timely submission of the report which he said will be given the desired attention promptly.
He said “With regards to execution of on plots allocated, you can see that the percentage is very low. It is appalling that out of 18,000 plots allocated, only about 485 from the period under review were actually developed. That means we are just not better than our predecessors who started the concept of Abuja because we have just succeeded in providing the necessary opportunity for land speculator to get land and keep them in their briefcases, rather than unbundling them the way and manner it is being done in other countries of the world where cities are built in two or three years and where districts are developed with private funding. We have to do it because we cannot afford the chameleon pace of the implementation of the Abuja masterplan.”
Tough words indeed, but as we await the outcome of the white paper of the Dansadau’s committee, Nigerians hope that a more sanitized AGIS will emerge that will definitely stamp out to the gross impunity and fraud associated with land transaction in the FCT.
Original Source: 
Original date published: 9 June 2010
Source: http://allafrica.com/stories/201006090592.html?viewall=1