The Minister of the Federal Capital Territory, Nyesom Wike, has ordered the immediate arrest of a property developer, Alhaji Kabiru Sahara, for allegedly seizing land originally allocated to foreign embassies and erecting illegal structures.
The directive was contained in a social media post shared on Friday by the minister’s media aide, Lere Olayinka, who revealed that the land in question had been officially allocated in 2008 to ten diplomatic missions for residential purposes, as well as to the Power Holding Company of Nigeria for the construction of a 132/133KV power station.
According to Lere, the affected plots were allocated to the embassies of Thailand, Bulgaria, Syria, Somalia, Serbia and Montenegro, Japan, Austria, Switzerland, Senegal, and the Palestine Liberation Organization.
However, the FCT Administration accused Alhaji Kabiru Sahara of illegally taking over the land and developing it without approval from the Federal Capital Development Authority (FCDA).
“The Department of Development Control issued repeated warnings, but the developer ignored them and continued erecting residential buildings, boasting that ‘nothing go happen,'” he said.
The Minister’s media aide confirmed that, as a result of this brazen defiance, the FCT Minister has ordered the developer’s arrest and the immediate demolition of all illegal structures on the site.
The statement also took a swipe at what it described as “Human Rice and Beans Cashtivists and ProtestPrenuers,” suggesting that they would soon begin to criticise the government’s action despite the clear violation of the law.
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