The Federal Capital Territory (FCT) Department of Development Control has accused the Nigeria Prisons Service (NPS) and the Nigeria Security and Civil defence Corps (NSCDC) of alleged involvement in the sale of land without allocation from appropriate authorities, to unsuspecting members of the public.
This is even as the department yesterday demolished about 14 uncompleted structures in Lugbe District of the FCT.
Six out of the structures located in Lugbe1 Extension were built on plots allegedly sold to the developers by the NPS, while eight of them were also sold to the developers by the NSCDC, for the purpose of mass housing development.
A statement from the department signed by its public relations officer, Josie Mudasiru, said that the plots on which the demolished buildings were erected had no allocation from the appropriate authority.
“These government agencies obtained fake allocation papers and have gone ahead to sell the plots to unsuspecting individuals in the name of mass housing development. The private developers, without recourse to several ‘stop work’ notices and public announcements from the Department of Development Control, had gone ahead and commenced development,” the statement added.
According to the statement, the deputy director of the department, Ibrahim Tukur Bakori explained that removal of all the structures on plots with such forged allocation papers had become necessary not only to curtail the illegalities, but to also serve as a warning signal to innocent citizens who had been falling prey to land speculators.
He lamented that despite the public announcements the department had made in major electronic and print media that there were no official layouts for estates beyond Federal Housing Authority (FHA) land at Lugbe and the Malaysian Garden along Outer Southern Expressway (OSEX), these agencies were still hell-bent on selling the plots to unsuspecting individuals.
It would be recalled that the Department of Development Control had earlier put up public announcements in the media signed by the permanent secretary, warning the general public to steer clear of these areas.
The department in the announcements advised those who had documents related to these areas to either steer clear or clarify the authentication of such documents from relevant departments in order to avoid further losses.
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