Policy somersault: FG set to reinstate Aboru allottees

Dayo Ayeyemi, Lagos

House demolition at Aboru. Photo: Dayo
Ayeyemi For the over three hundred allottees of the Aboru Federal Housing Site and Services scheme, whose houses were demolished five years ago on the order of the former Minister of the defunct Ministry of Housing and Urban Development, Chief Mrs. Mobolaji Osomo, this is their moment of divine intervention and total recovery as the current government of President Umar Yar’dua is concluding plan to correct the injustice suffered by them in the last dispensation.

Impeccable sources from the Ministry of Environment, Housing and Urban Development (FMEHUD) and allotees who spoke on condition of anonymity told Nigerian Tribune that the central authority was working on modalities to reinstate the allottees to their original plots.

According to one of the allottees, a meeting between the representatives of the FMEHUD and Aboru allottees in respect of their reinstatement to original plots was held behind close doors last week in Lagos. It will be recalled that the Federal Government, through its former Minister of Housing and Urban Development, in 2004, demolished several houses in Aboru Site and Services scheme to give way for the proposed Abesan New Town Housing Project despite allottees’ claims of having genuine Certificates of Occupancy (Cs-of-O) on the land.

The minister called their bluff and went ahead to destroy the houses, some of which had been completed while others were in different stages of completion. The ugly event rendered many allottees homeless, some died in the process while others are still licking their wounds four years after. When contacted on phone on the planned reinstatement, Coordinator of the Allottees, under the umbrella body of the Aboru Federal Ministry of Environment and Housing Allottees Association, Mr. F.G Agunbiade, confirmed the incident, saying the meeting held essentially focused on strategies and logistic for reinstatement of original allottees after five years of what he described as “emotional harrowing” for the displaced people.

He said that the representatives of the FMEHUD promised to commence rebeaconing of the whole land in order to identify individual’s plots, but warned them to commence development immediately it is done to avoid further encroachment. Besides reinstatement, the Aboru allottees coordinator stated that other issue germane to the discussion which has not been resolved was compensation for allottees whose rights were trampled upon by the former minister. Justifying need for compensation, he said that some of the allottees invested all their savings, gratuities and borrowed funds to acquire the land and build houses but had all the investments destroyed illegally in one day by the agent of the minister.

He also wanted the former minister and his agent to be investigated in order to prevent future occurrence, saying that the minister, in one of the interview granted to pressmen immediately the evil was perpetrated justified the action. Another allottee, Mrs. Peace Nwoha, raised the alarm over on-going encroachment by the ‘Omooniles’, who, he said, have been reselling their land to some people for development. According to her, she was shocked to see new foundation being laid on her plot of land by people who bought the land ignorantly from land speculators popularly known as ‘Omooniles’.

She stated that several attempts to stop the encroacher were met with threat from the ‘Omooniles’, who, she said, brandished dangerous weapons at her, asking her to come for fresh negotiation. Another allottee, Mr. Ashaolu Fowowe, narrated how they (allottees) got the land, stating that some of them applied for the land in 1987 under the site and services schemes of the Federal Government in response to Daily Newspaper advertisement by the defunct Ministry of Works and Housing.

According to him, in December 1991, they were informed through the same newspaper that the plots of land had been allotted to them at Abesan site and Services Scheme, which he stated they duly paid for as early as 1992. Receipt of payment for the land and survey, he said was granted to every allottees.

He said, “We subsequently got approved building plans and started developing the land. This development had reached various stages of completion; and some of us had even completed their own when Chief (Mrs.) Mobolaji Osomo was appointed Minister of Housing and Urban Development.”