FCTA Seals Off PDP Secretariat, FIRS, Others Over Ground Rent
THECONSCIENCE NG reports that the Officials of the Federal Capital Territory (FCTA) have sealed off Wadata Plaza, the building housing the National Secretariat of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in Abuja, over unpaid ground and tenancy rent.
Lere Olayinka, the Senior Special Assistant on Public Communications and Social Media to the FCT Minister, Nyesom Wike, said the plaza owes N7,603,504.31 as 28 years’ ground rent.
“On Wadata Plaza being used as PDP National Secretariat, N7,603,504.31 is being owed as 28 years’ Ground Rent,” he wrote on his Facebook page on Monday afternoon after the sealing off.
The building was part of the structures sealed off by the FCT administration on Monday. Others included complexes housing a commercial bank, the Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS), and the Agency for the Prohibition of Trafficking in Persons (NAPTIP) at the Wuse Zone 5 in the nation’s capital.
At the FIRS, FCTA officials had clashed. Security guards and some staff of the agency tried to prevent them from gaining entrance into the property. But they were later allowed into the building before sealing it off.
According to Lere, the FIRS has not paid ground rent for 25 years.
Last week, the FCTA, in a statement by Lere and the administration’s Director Department of Development Control, Mukhtar Galadima, ordered the taking of “possession of the 4,794 properties revoked over non-payment of Ground Rent, for between 10 and 43 years”.
“Ownership of the revoked 4,794 properties in the Central Area, Garki I and II, Wuse I and II, Asokoro, Maitama and Guzape districts, had already reverted to the FCTA, and as from Monday, next week, the government will begin to exercise its rights of ownership on the affected landed properties,” the statement read.
“As usual, this will be done without consideration as to ownership of the affected landed properties. It will be purely in line with extant laws and regulations guiding the process.”
According to the FCTA, the buildings now belong to the administration.
