Minister of FCT, Nyesom Wike
By Raphael Ekpang
Evidence of land racketeering in the FCTA, diversion of government funds to personal pockets and the involvement of fake and or illegal layouts in the area councils has been uncovered by the Core Reporters.
Some victims of land fraud and insiders within Abuja Geographical Information System (AGIS), Area Councils and office of the FCT Minister’s registry have revealed that a lot of atrocities are been committed by this group of land racketeers, also, known as land cartel.
According to Core Reporters‘ investigation, this criminal activities spanned from 2007 when in 2004 the then FCT Minister, Mallam Nasir El Rufai banned and prohibited the grant of building development approvals for Rural/Council lands pending recertification. Subsequent administrations particularly in 2007 doubling down on the measures and factors within the department whom are direct members of this cartel and other associated collaborators in the department have perfected the art of back-dating and approving rural lands building and developments plans.
Core Reporters in the cause of this investigation will exposed the cartel mondus operandi, mention names of members of the cartel, their spread, the account numbers they are using for transaction as well as the cash received, and the names of the companies they are using to defraud unsuspecting Nigerians and foreigners alike.
In our investigation it is obvious that the Development Control of the FCT Administration, Urban & Regional Planing Department, Directorate of land administration department FCTA and Area Councils, lands administration department are the fulcrum of the cartel as well as their external collaborators in the security agencies and in courts.
These members of the cartel, are so powerful that when a new Minister of the FCT is appointed they make sure the staff of the registry are drafted to their membership so that any petition to the Honourable Minister against any of them does not see the light of the day.
According to our findings, the statutory development and building plans processing and approval fees belonging to the FCT Administration Revenue Stream are diverted and siphoned into the private pockets of these characters and fellow members of the cartel.
A simple question begging for answer is, why is it that only members of the aforementioned departments in the FCTA and Area Councils are making hell of money despite their level in the civil service?
At the cause of this investigation, we discovered that especially those in the land department of Bwari area council both former and current are super rich with landed properties across the area council, the proceeds of fake and illegal sale of lands.
DEVELOPMENT CONTROL DEPARTMENT
The Development Control Department have been pivotal and played a Key – strategic roles in facilitating, empowering and passing of building development approvals of the illegal land sold by the cartel.
It will interest one to note that, Development Control Department denies original genuine allottee(s) building development approvals untill bribery is offer to them amounting to millions of naira in some case before they will comply but in lands they have interest in, such approvals will never come despite the bribe they might have collected like the alleged case of Christopher Emefiele.
Emefiele gave certain persons in the Development Control Department huge amount of money to facilitate his building development approvals ranging from one hundred thousand naira (N100, 000) to twelve million naira (N12m) but till date the approvals never came, this is one of the many cases of such magnitude that Core Reporters in our subsequent edition would be mentioning individuals that are involved, the amount they collected, how they collect and when they collected.
DIRECTORATE OF LAND ADMINISTRATION DEPARTMENT
Core Reporters investigation also revealed that the Directorate of Land Administration Department in the FCTA is known for Aider, Abettor and promoter of cartel. There are also, responsible for the Lies & Deceit in the Fraudulent Caveat Placed on some Properties. They do that to protects elements within the AGIS/Lands Departments for the Theft & Sales of Legitimate Property.
Our findings showed that some of the legal officers attached to the Lands Department are notorious collaborators in the theft & sales of unsuspected people’s properties
It is instructive to note that there are Clerical staff at Lands/AGIS who are swindler and involved in the theft and illegal sales of people’s properties, mastermind in hijacking and appropriating lawful properties of those who may have died or are unaware of allocations made to them. There are of course the general opportunists and cruel operatives of the criminal lands syndicates.
URBAN & REGIONAL PLANING DEPARTMENT
Almost every single senior management staff and other mid-level staffer with an exception of a few of them; both past and present from our investigation are the most active and committed Insiders that have consistently work in close tandem and at the behest of the external criminal master minds of the FCT lands rackets outfit and or Cartels.
Every Single Illegal Layout Design by the cartel goes straight to the URP data based, duly back-dated and dubbed “Updated and or Restructured, Reconfigured – whatever the pretense”; and yet, not a single copy of these purported drawn and allocated rural land layouts of several thousands of land areas and districts so called updates back dated from 1998 to 2003 has been captured by the AGIS system satellite captured till date.
However, AGIS came on stream in 2004 and by 2005 was fully functional and since then has captured all the legitimate urban statutory and rural/regional layouts of the entire FCT. Thus, its certain that not more than 10% – 20% of un-captured rural lands allocations and layout designs are authentic.
Core Reporters investigation proved that URBAN & REGIONAL PLANING DEPARTMENT is directly involved in the fake and illegal layouts designs which include; planning, designing and productions of settlements, townships, estates, markets, commercial centers etc on and over vast tracts of lands measuring in the tens and hundreds of thousands of hectares all over the FCT, and in particular within the Bwari Area Council without any authority whatsoever and absolutely without any ministerial approval whatsoever. This has been the tradition since 2007. As a result, of this cartel’s activities, vast plots of lands are thus unlawfully and criminally produced, backdated and sold to millions of land hungry Nigerians who ultimately end up victims and dupes of this criminal syndicate.
They also divert all Lands related official government revenue streams receipts, credit vouchers and all cash-flows arising from any and every lands transaction activities ranging from lands forms/files opening processing fees to every other aspect of lands administration services provision that attracts or involved an official or mandatory service fee payments. This scam operates and is coordinated at multiple levels of the FCT Administration system, and, it alone, provides vast and unprecedented criminal source of cash flows in the trillion of naira to this criminal racketeering outfit fraudulently diverted and siphoned from the government coffers.
AREA COUNCILS
In Area Councils, we discovered that lands administration department (Clerical Staff) are solely responsible for the printing of all lands revenue receipts with no due process nor accountability. The Clerical Staff prints the receipts at any commercial printers of their choice and stack them at their personal homes. Some of them operate from their homes, charge whatever fees they deem fit, collect all payments in cash. These have been the practice and status quo since 2007 till date.
Some of these land syndicates from the area Councils after carried out operations in sales of illegal layouts, in their respective area Councils are seconded to AGIS Lands Administration Department for the purpose of Record Reconciliation
Area Councils zonal land offices, every zonal manager and every staff associated to land are presumably part of the cartel
We found out that If the cartel discovered that the original allottee(s) through any means get to the Minister and reclaimed their land, the Development Control department will do everything possible to frustrate them by not giving approval to their buildings development plan, until in some cases when they have collected sufficient bribe and in some case frustrate them till death.
Fake Building plans’ approvals that Development Control has granted since 2007 and backdated in rural lands is running into trillions and the money is in the pockets of cartel’s members, the revenue which ordinarily should go directly to the FCT administration coffers.
The Development Control will tell you they don’t approve building plans for rural lands but Core Reporters discovered that they do even in high standard and the funds are shared among the cartel.
Core Reporters will in the next edition of this exposee bring to forth every single illegal layouts they have done since 2007.
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