The Senior Special Assistant to the FCT minister on Public Communications, Lere Olayinka, in this interview, tells ABIODUN NEJO about land matters in the FCT and problems with the Peoples Democratic Party in Ekiti State and Nigeria
You were spokesperson to Governor Ayodele Fayose while in office and now to Federal Capital Territory Minister, Nyesom Wike. What’s your experience managing the publicity of the two personalities?
If you look at the two personalities, I used to tell my boss, Ayo Fayose, that there is only a thin line of difference between him and Wike. They are not too different. They are people who speak their mind, not minding who is affected. They are bold and courageous to act on issues of national importance. They are not the kind of persons you can intimidate or blackmail to submission. The two of them are almost the same, so, managing the publicity of the FCT minister is almost like managing that of Fayose.
How is the FCT faring under Wike, especially with the noise over land revocation?
A visit to Abuja will tell anybody how the FCT is faring under Wike. If you have not been to Abuja for two years and you come now, there are places where you will miss your way. You would not even know. There are places that you will not recognise again. That is how FCT has become. With what is happening in the FCT, people now ask what has been done in the last eight years. The people can see the marked difference and development. It is not rocket science. People can see what the government is doing, roads being constructed, buildings, and government functioning.
But the minister is being accused of land grabbing…
Land grabbing is just a cliché that people use because Wike is doing things differently now. He is insisting that if you must own land in the FCT, you must own it legally, you must own it, not because you know him or because you are from the South or North. He is operating the FCT as it should be. A lot of people are not happy. The issue on the front burner now is the one a woman, Chief (Mrs) Rita Lori-Ogbebor, brought to the media, sponsoring some social media content creators to make noise. The issue is simple. You are saying that someone grabbed your land, does the land in question belong to you? It never belonged to her husband, who was the owner of Paulosa Nigeria Ltd. The land was allocated to construction companies that got contracts in the 80s. That area of Abuja is called Life Camp, because construction companies built camps there for their workers; that is why it is called Life Camp. They were given allocations to temporarily use the land as a temporary site office. When a contractor gets a job to construct a road and you choose to say, ‘Contractor, take and use my family land as your office,’ when the contractor finishes his job, is the contractor not supposed to leave the land?
In this case, Paulosa, one of the contractors, did not leave. Paulosa built permanent structures on the land and rented the structures out to Lebanese mostly and was collecting rent for close to 40 years. Other construction companies that had the same opportunities left. Costain shared a fence with the land Paulosa was claiming and now Costain had left. The only construction company claiming ownership of land at that place till today is Paulosa.
You may ask why Paulosa is claiming ownership of land when other contractors given temporary allocation the same way had left. The issue is simple, people still believe that it is business as usual, that in Nigeria, we can do whatever we like, we can make noise, we whip up sentiments, raise emotion, go to television stations and cry, ‘Oh, my husband was a soldier, he fought for Nigeria!’ Yes, the husband was a soldier, but she failed to tell Nigerians that her husband was also a contractor after being a soldier. Her husband (the owner of Paulosa) got a contract to build underground drainage in Abuja and collected his pay. If Paulosa collected his money, why should Paulosa now take government land? If they knew that the land actually belonged to them as the woman is claiming, why did they write to the government in 2020, seeking approval to own the land permanently? They wrote to the government asking for the right of occupancy to own the place. They did that when the owner of the company had died. The questions I ask here are – Why didn’t the owner of the company, her husband, apply to the government before he died? Why didn’t the owner claim ownership of the land when he was alive? He knew the history. He knew that he was not the owner of the land. But the moment he died, some people saw the opportunity of inheriting a big parcel of land, so they asked the government to approve the land for them.
But there was a response by the FCT to the letter…
On February 1, 2023, the government conveyed an approval to them that we have approved, you can now own this land permanently under the condition that you do this, this and this. The payment listed, I think, should be around N67m for a land that you built and you are claiming to be an estate that you have been using for over 40 years. The government said ‘Go and pay around N67m’, that was February 1, last year. But 20 months later, no payment was made, nothing was done, they didn’t get back to the government to appeal for reduction or that they would pay in instalments or that they would pay every two months or to request help to divide the land into two so that they could pay for half if it is too big. They did not do anything.
After waiting for 20 months without any response from Paulosa, the government cancelled the offer. A letter was sent to them stating that the offer granted 20 months earlier had been revoked due to their failure to comply with the terms and conditions. The land was subsequently awarded to another party — an entity that demonstrated willingness, seriousness, and readiness to meet the requirements. This was the outcome in that case.
What is your reaction to the allegation that the beneficiary of the land after the cancellation of the approval is Wike’s ally?
There is what people call giving a dog a bad name to hang it. You raise sentiments, you raise emotions. I am not going to be talking about the particular person the land was allocated to, but let me also ask, assuming but not conceding that the land was allocated to the person they are talking about, as a Nigerian, are you saying that because he is Wike’s person, he does not have right to own land? Are we saying that because you are a journalist now and I am also a journalist, if one day I become FCT minister, you cannot own land in FCT until I leave office? The questions Nigerians should begin to ask are – Did he comply with the terms and conditions to own land or was the land just allocated to him free just like that? Did he make the necessary payments? Did he apply normally? Is that person the only one to whom land has been allocated in the last year? What about others who are not Wike’s friends or who he does not even know? That is assuming but not conceding that the information is right. Are we saying anybody from Rivers State should not own land in Abuja because Wike is the FCT minister? Where is the law that says if you are the FCT minister, people from your state or home town must not own land?
At the time that land was allocated, it had never been allocated to any human being. The first permanent allocation, right of occupancy that was given on that land was the one recently given. The mistake people are making is that the FCT revoked allocation, no. There was no allocation to Paulosa at all. If that woman knows what she is talking about, let her come to the public. The Senate has called for an investigation. Let her take her documents to the Senate. Let the FCT also take its documents to the Senate.
That was why I said I love what the Senate has done. Call for public investigation of these allegations, you will find that these people making allegations will not show up. They will not come out because they know that there is no foundation for the noise they are making.
What is the essence of the revocation and demolition exercise in the FCT?
Let me give you these instances, there are many like that. I am aware of a person who built a house on underground drainage. How will one go and build a house on underground drainage? I am aware of one that got approval to operate a park and recreational centre. In most cases, approval like that is temporary, not always for more than 30 years, you got approval to operate a recreational centre, and the woman went to build a school and a church on the land. These are the issues that people are talking about, saying they are demolishing houses, or revoking land allocation and others.
If you get your land normally and you have made the necessary payments, nobody will revoke your land. Nobody will revoke your allocation. In the last two weeks, advertisements were placed in about 10 major newspapers, listing 9,532 Nigerians that got land allocations not five years, not 10 years, but over 20 years ago that have not made necessary payments. The advertisement was made and the condition was that, ‘go and pay, if you don’t pay at a certain period, your land will be revoked and when your land is revoked, it is final’. Among the people affected by that is former governor of Benue State, Samuel Ortom. Everybody knows how close Samuel Ortom is to Wike. They are friends, they are political allies, but his name was published. Wike did not say they should remove Ortom’s name because Ortom is his friend.
The problem with the people is that we now have a minister who is not looking at people’s faces, or operating based on friendship, family or anything. He is saying that ‘do the right thing and be free’. Is that too difficult to understand? And I can tell you that it is difficult for them because this is Nigeria where people believe it is the government. The government will do a micro-credit scheme, and people will obtain loans yet refuse to pay. When you collect a government loan and you refuse to pay it back, how will other people benefit from other kinds of loans? That is what has been happening in this country and some people are coming to say this cannot continue. I understand too that there will be resistance; that is what we are seeing.
Going forward, what is your advice for property owners and potential ones in the FCT?
It is very easy, there are offices, and there are departments in the FCT that people know. If you want land now in Abuja, the first thing you do is to pick the allocation form, then you go to the appropriate office to check if the land is available. The system is automated, the master plan is there, and you will see whether it has been allocated or not. Even if you want to buy land from anybody, you have to go to that place to see whether the land was allocated to the person who wants to sell it or to another person. It is not like in other places where lands are owned by individuals or families. Land in the FCT is owned by the government. The government land is the easiest to buy and the cheapest, but because people are impatient and not ready to wait, they end up going through people who will at times swindle them. When you want land, go to the appropriate quarters, and find out the processes so that you don’t end up falling into the wrong side of the law.
Again, a lot of people are holding land allocation, some are even holding acknowledgement and claiming that they already have land. It is only when you make payment, and get the right of occupancy that you can begin to claim that you have land. That is the structure Wike is building in Abuja so that whatever you get is genuine. Wike is saying that whoever you are or whichever part of the country you are from, just do the right thing.
The NCAA has given the nod to Ekiti airport for unscheduled flight operations. How will you react to this, especially as many people have argued that the airport project won’t fly?
It is news that gladdens the minds of people like us. I must commend Governor Biodun Oyebanji for making sure that the airport gets to that level of being operational. Politics, to people like us, is about service to the people, it is about the people’s welfare, it should not be about when it is not my party.
I remember then when the PDP was in government, Governor Fayose wanted to build the same airport, but some people were instigated to go to court. That is in the past. Now we are getting to see that the airport can work. As I speak with you, I am somewhere heading to an airport, if I am to go by road from here to my destination, it will take me like 10 hours. It will be a joy for some of us to take flights to and from Ekiti, instead of going to Akure and having to spend about N40,000 on an airport taxi to get to Ado Ekiti. We should have our own and I commend the governor for ensuring that the airport gets to that level of functionality.
How prepared is the PDP in Ekiti to wrest power from the APC in the 2026 governorship election?
Well, that is a question for the people who are now, sort of, in control of the party. The party has a caretaker committee so to say, they are the people who can talk about the party. As I am, it is on your mark, set, go. For me, it is as directed by Fayose, wherever he goes, whatever he does.
But as a concerned chieftain, do you think the party can get its house in order before the governorship election?
The truth of the matter is that, as of today, I am not seeing any prospect yet, I don’t deceive myself. I don’t know what will happen tomorrow, but today, all the indicators, even membership commitment etc are not just there. Some of us have said that in a situation where you have a gathering of people where there is no principle of reward and punishment, these are what you get. Today, you see people who openly worked against PDP in the 2022 governorship and 2023 general election, those who worked against people like us when we contested the election, people who openly campaigned against us, people who were everywhere tearing our posters are now the ones beating their chests and saying they are in charge of the party. Some of us are just sitting back to see how far they can go. Instead of the party to sit down and examine how it got things wrong, their concern is how to get people away and how not to relate with certain people. As of today, those people even say they don’t want some people at the party. They are even telling the people who and who they don’t want in the party. I read on some WhatsApp platforms three days ago about the caretaker chairman suspending one of the caretaker members, and the caretaker secretary responding by stating that the caretaker chairman lacked the authority to do so. That is what is happening in the party. That was why I said those people are the ones who can tell the situation of the party, not me.
At the national level, there have been cases of internal challenges, suspensions, court cases, and more. Why has it been difficult for the PDP to get its house in order?
The problem is what I mentioned earlier. Lack of principle of reward and punishment. People who openly worked against the party in the past, what happened to them? In 2003, I know what someone did to ensure that the PDP did not take Lagos at that time. Imagine PDP winning Lagos State in 2003, look at the implications, but they made sure the party did not win Lagos State that time. They sabotaged the efforts of the party. The same person who sabotaged the effort of the party in 2003 went on to form another party, Action Congress, in 2007 and contested as president under the party as a sitting vice president, nothing was done to him. He went to another party when he failed in the election, he returned to the PDP and the party welcomed him, instead of sanctioning him and telling him that what he did was wrong and getting him to apologise and commit that he would not do it again. Nothing like that was done to him and that was why in 2014, the same person led another rebellion. If this person had not led that rebellion of 2014, the PDP would not be where it is today, because the then president, Goodluck Jonathan, would not have lost that election in 2014.
The foundation of what is happening to the PDP started in 2003, followed up in 2007 and climaxed in 2014, led by a single individual and that individual is still telling us that he is the only one that can fly the flag of the party in 2027, it will not work. That is the bone of contention.
If former Vice President, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar, comes out now to say ‘I won’t be contesting again,’ this crisis in the PDP will go down, because people are now wise. In 2019, after picking the ticket and losing, he went to Dubai and stayed for more than two years, leaving the party in the hands of people like Wike, Fayose, and governors then, Bala Mohammed and others. They were the ones who funded the party and stayed by it. He came back, then with whatever sentiments again, he picked the ticket for the 2023 election and it ended up the way it ended. I believe that that kind of person should now be sincere enough to say ‘I have tried, this party has also tried for me, let me now become a father figure, let me now sit back. I will support whoever emerges as the party candidate’. It should not be him always, he is not the only one in the PDP.
