Land swap: Aggrieved Abuja indigenes raise alarm over N1bn resettlement scam

House of Representatives on Wednesday confirmed the receipt of a petition on the N1 billion financial scandals earmarked for resettlement of indigenes for the acquisition of Centenary project.

According to the petitioners, only N26 million was paid as compensation out of the N1 billion approved by relevant authorities.

The scandal, which involved some unidentified FCT officials under the Bala Mohammed’s administration, according to the Herman Hembe, chairman, House Committee on FCT, was reported by aggrieved indigenes via a petition to the committee.

BusinessDay gathered that the sum of $2.8 billion was to be injected into provision of engineering infrastructure by the 15 investors and pay additional sum of N4 billion as resettlement.

Speaking on the intent of the investigative hearing, Hembe, who spoke at the pre-Land Swap investigative hearing held at the National Assembly complex, Abuja, disclosed plan to summon the immediate past FCT minister and all the investors involved in the land swap policy.

According to him, the land swap investigation was sequel to the resolution passed by the House, and was aimed at unravelling owners of several undeveloped plots of land and other properties such as buildings in the highbrow areas of the FCT, such as Maitama, Wuse, Asokoro and Utako.

He further explained that the Committee investigation aimed at determining whether the owners of such undeveloped properties fulfilled the purpose for which they acquired them from the FCT authorities.

“The House passed a resolution mandating this committee to establish the status of undeveloped plots in high brows areas of Abuja with fully serviced infrastructure. The idea is for the committee to identify such plots and recommend what should be done with them.

“You are aware that when you are given a land, you are also given the terms of development and time frame within which you are expected to develop the plot.

“Another issue is the issue of abandoned projects in the territory and to identify such projects and also find out why they were abandoned and suggest measures toward ensuring that such is not repeated again.

“I’m aware of about 840 hectares of land given to a private company, it was said that government couldn’t provide infrastructure for the development of the land and so, the company still possesses that property illegally.

“Another area is the Land Swap Agreement of the FCT with private developers. There are eight Districts where these land swap arrangements had taken place and we are going to look at all these areas in our investigation,” Hembe said.

While soliciting for the cooperation of the media, Hembe stressed the need to expose all forms of corruption perpetuated in the exercise by a few privileged Nigerians.

“We will put out notice for people to come forward and make inputs with the expectations that the media will also give us its support via proper coverage of our hearings.

“Most of the leg work will be done by members of this committee. The abandoned capital project that exist in the FCT are enormous. We will ask for the documents and we don’t think that should take more than a day or two in terms of the hearing. The Minister has promised to make relevant documents available to the committee,” he said.