Abdul-Rahman Abubakar
4 May 2008
Abuja — The probe of the Ministry of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) being conducted by the Senate Committee on FCT came to a crescendo last week when the controversial erstwhile minister Nasir el-Rufai began his defence.
El-Rufai is billed to appear again before the panel on Wednesday to answer many more questions regarding his tenure as FCT minister. Sunday Trust brings you excerpts of the former minister's submission last week on the most contentious issues.
On land committee
When I came to the FCT the records were manual, they were disorganized and there were all kinds of problems. The president had given a directive to me to compile the land register and that was taking time. It is one of the issues that the president said I should address because he gave me a letter. The number one item was to computerize the land register within the shortest possible time. Because of that I had to suspend land allocations until the register was computerized. We only started allocating lands towards the end of 2004, therefore for fifteen months while I was minister I did not allocate lands. The only lands we allocated were those for schools or for public purposes, we did not allocate any land for residential purposes.
I did not find any land allocation committee in place when I took office. What I learnt from people I interacted with including some state governors was that there is no state in Nigeria that has a land use allocation committee because the members of such committee use their positions to go beyond their brief. Members of land use allocation committee are supposed to use their positions to advise the minister on land use matters or on land revocation or compensation. The experience not only in FCT but in other states of the federation was that when you make people members of the land use allocation committee they will allocate land when really it is not their duty. Allocation of land is something that starts with the officials and end up in the governors' or ministers' office.
There was no land use allocation committee in the FCT when I came. I don't for how long because I did not go into details. There was no land use allocation committee for me to dissolve and reappoint a new one. I then went to President Obasanjo and told him that he was the one that enacted the land use decree and this was what I got from people, including some state governors that I spoke with. So the president told me to set the act aside and concentrate on the twenty five thousand land application and dispatch them. When I took over there was no mention of any land use allocation committee in the handover note I got from my predecessor.
On demolition
I am trained as a Quantity Surveyor. I make a living from buildings so it is very painful and difficult for me to bring down a building. Please understand that, because the impression given is that I wake up in the morning and I go and demolish people's properties. I make a living from building. I built my first house when I was 29, I know that building a house is probably the most important emotional investment any one can make. I want the committee to understand that when we take a decision that a building be removed it is because it is necessary in the public interest. There are actually three categories of buildings that we removed and I will go through them. There are those with valid land documents but they made a mistake. That is whether the land has water line traversing like the case of the former chairman of PDP or under right of way or something that is valid building but violating. The other class is someone who has no papers at all and he builds but it is still an important investment. There is also the group that bought the lands from original inhabitants. When the capital moved from Lagos there was accommodation crisis and people came and used their savings to buy lands from chiefs and so on to build houses. They thought that land tenure system in Abuja is the same as where they came from. So these are the three categories.
Mr. Chairman I want to assure you that before we reached the decision to remove these buildings, we checked and cross checked. In fact the first hundred buildings that were demolished, I made sure I went and saw before demolishing. I want to assure, Mr Chairman that we paid compensation. You can call the National Assembly appropriation record. Every year we budget about N1 billion for compensation, but before you are entitled to compensation you must have C of O, you must have development plan. Once you have that we value the building and pay you based on replacement cost that is the provision in the FCT Act. We have paid and there are many that will not come forward because they don't have a problem.
You have been told here that 75,000 buildings were demolished. Mr. Chairman I want us to reflect on this, I was minister for four years, and there are 250 working days in a year. If every single day they were demolishing without stopping that will be 1000 days, it means that we were demolishing 75 buildings in a day. I don't know where the officials got this information. It cannot be correct because there are not up to 75 bulldozers in this town to demolish such buildings in a day.
On Anyim's property
When I became a minister we were informed that former ministers of FCT were still signing land allocations and Certificates of Occupancy. I did not believe that anybody that has held that position will be signing and backdating papers. So we started investigating, I got the EFCC then to open a file in the FCT to help us investigate all the so-called land syndicates. And they arrested two people, one called Engineer Success and the other called Alhaji Kamba. Engineer Success did his NYSC there, after which he wasn't employed but he had enough people within the system so he set up this forgery syndicate. They were doing everything; they will give you allocation letter with correct signature, they were printing C of Os in Kaduna, we will give you the report of the EFCC that investigated it. They had their printing press in Kaduna and were printing our C of O. They could sign the signature of every minister that had served in the FCT. Engineer Success was arrested and prosecuted, Kamba was arrested but they could not find enough charges to prosecute him and they let him go.
Many people were victims of Engineer Success. He was very clever because he can identify areas that have been planned by the FCDA but not allocated and he will get very important people; he particularly targeted senators. If you take our original C of O and place them side by side you will not know the difference.
Senator Anyim Pius Anyim was one of such victims, Senator Zwingina was one of such victims, and Dream Plaza who came here was one of such victims. The issue that we had and we even took to the federal executive council was that someone has been given land and all his papers are fake. He has no title, he has no development plan, he got the C of O, and building plan approval was all fake. What do we do and they have built the house. Of course the legal position is that the building be removal without compensation.
So I said to President Obasanjo we have a case here, which we have to go to council to discuss because if you demolish that building and allocate the plot to someone he has to uproot the foundation to use the plot so it is a waste. We regularized such allocations because many of them were guilty; when we availed some of them with the documents they were shocked because they thought Success was an official of the FCDA. Late Senator Enwerem was a victim. So if you look at how we treated Senator Anyim, Zwingina and Dream Plaza there is a bit of difference.
In the case of Anyim it is because it was a residential area and conforms to the master plan, that we said he will pay a penalty. Initially the building was valued for him to buy back from the government because the building belongs to the government, that is the law. And after that he showed me how much he borrowed to build the place and I went back and it was reduced to twenty something from a hundred and something million. But where Dream Plaza and Zwingina had their buildings were supposed to be parks, so they had to be removed. This was what the federal executive council decided in the meeting of July 19.
In the case of Dream Plaza, he came to me and I felt sorry for him, they were all victims of Success. I say look I am sorry this has to happen and I gave him two plots and I will give you the details of what we gave him because he did not say that when he came here.
On court orders
It is in the interest of people like me to have order in society, so that I can survive. I have never and I want to say it for the record, I have never disobeyed any court order served on me. I mean court orders served on me properly or even served on the Director Legal Services. I would like to see such court orders sir. People have come here to say all sorts of things. No court has ruled that the FCTA has disobeyed any court order, like I have said I have never disobeyed any court order passed on me. I have to be served; if I am not accessible the Director of Legal Services is not inaccessible. In one case I and the Executive Secretary were dragged before the FCT High Court because one officer in our office signed the court order which was brought to her and when we went before the judge we told the judge that we were never served. I have to be personally served; you cannot go and serve a clerk. I have never said no court orders were served, but what I said was that I never disobeyed any court orders properly served on me.
On Ahmadu Ali's property
The building of Senator Ahmadu Ali is sitting squarely on the water line. What is right is right and rules are rules. I went and showed to Ahmadu Ali and I said this is an opportunity for PDP to show that as the party in power when even the leaders of our party are caught by the rules we apply them. These rules are not just targeted at the poor or the not so privileged. The FCT Water Board drew my attention to it. It took one year before we took that decision. In fact Dr. Ali himself didn't agree he said the water line had passed away. I showed him the satellite image but he said no the pipe did not pass there, it passed a few meters away. But I told him that my water board has said it is there, he said give me time at my own expense I will get people to dig and show you where your pipe is, not under my building. He said he needed time and I gave him four weeks. It was only after that time that I took the matter to Mr. President. I told the president that our national chairman's house has to go.
What happened was after we had removed that building, the FCT water board came back to me and said actually even the second building on the side should go because it was within 20 meters of the pipe. You know a trunk water line must have 20 meters space in case of maintenance. I said no, I had few months to go, let the next minister handle it.
On the late Bashir Sambo
The case of Justice Bashir Sambo was a very difficult and painful one for me, for many reasons. When my father died, a cousin of mine took me over and put me through school. That cousin of mine is a close friend and colleague of Justice Bashir Sambo. My cousin, Malam Yahaya was permanent secretary federal ministry of education, Justice Sambo then was Chief Education Officer, Secondary Schools in the North Central State and my cousin who brought me up and is like a father to me was Chief Education Officer, Teacher Training and Primary Schools. Justice Bashir Sambo's eldest wife, Hajiya Jummai is the eldest sister of my partner in our Quantity Survey firm, so we are a family.
I just feel it is important to lay this background because the way people are talking, it is as if there is something personal in what happened to Bashir Sambo, that is not true. Justice Bashir Sambo is like a father to me, we lived in the same neighborhood in Kaduna for many years, and his older children are my friends.
I want to say that at the point that our agents got the court order at Justice Sambo's house they should have stopped and referred it to us. They used their discretion wrongly. If I knew there was a court order I wouldn't have allowed it but I will not take responsibility for what I don't know. I swear to God that it was not until Justice Bashir Sambo's son came here to make his submission that I got to know the court order. I had never before seen that court order. A few days after Justice Bashir Sambo's eviction because of the outcry, the FCTA administration had to issue a full page newspapers advert trying to tell our side of the story. Up to that time we were still insisting there was no court order because no one had seen it. As far as I am concerned and till the time I left as minister I had not seen the court order.
On Atiku's guest houses
The guidelines for sale of houses provide that there has to be bidding. But in the course of implementing the guideline we found situations where the guideline could not cover everything. Justice Sambo's case was one of them. For instance, Code of Conduct Tribunal operates like a court but it was not included, all other courts houses were exempted from sale, but somehow Code of Conduct Tribunal was not included. That was what started all the case of Justice Bashir Sambo which I hope I will have the opportunity to go into.
Though the guidelines were both in-depth and exhaustive, there are times when the rules run out. The guidelines some time run out so we had to go back to the president in council and get approval. By the time the president took the decision that the Vice President's guest houses should be sold we had finished several rounds of bidding. My house was exempted so I could not buy my official residence like many others and at some point Atiku Abubakar called me and said he wanted to buy one of the guest houses and we had no rule then to allow those in government to buy any house. So I did a memo to Mr. President and I said the vice president, yourself, Senate President, Speaker and many other people cannot buy houses on this program based on the current guidelines. I think it is only fair that they are given consideration for all the guest houses available which were unoccupied. They should be given the opportunity to buy just like other political office holders.
There was no bidding because like I said sometime the rules run out. When the vice president came he did not say he want to bid for any of the houses he said he wanted to buy one. So I had to come up with a policy because it was not only him. I wrote to the president and he approved that all those people should be given the chance, including justices of the Supreme Court, Court of Appeal and FCT High Court because their houses were not going to be sold and should be given the opportunity to buy one of the houses. I took a memo and wrote to everyone in that list including the Chief Justice of Nigeria. I attached a form saying the executive council had approved that you can buy any of the houses. You pick the one you want then we put it to bidding then you get the right to match. Vice president Atiku Abubakar never returned the form; I went to his office twice. The third time he said he misplaced it and I sent another one and he never sent the form back.
Through out the period whenever we had difficulty we went back to council to obtain approval. This guidelines were issued by the federal executive council, whenever there is a lacuna I go back to the council and they amend it.
Any apology?
All the actions I took were based on advice I got at that time. It is not all the buildings that we demolished, that have a plan. As at the time we took the decisions this was the advice available to me. I said if there are any houses demolished on that bases, I apologize. I did not apologize for demolition because what we did was applying the law as it stood. Now if we demolished a few buildings and I am sure they are negligible, that had boys' quarters or whatever, I apologize. But if on account of the advice I got at that point in time what we did was right.
I don't know anywhere or any convention that said that laws should be violated because of human right. You don't rely on human right to break the law. In demolition I don't know what human rights have been violated, what I have used is here based on guidelines that I got. The fact is that what we had on our C of O is not necessarily correct and I said if there is any building we demolished on that basis, I apologize. I did not apologize for demolition because what we did was apply the law as it is.
People have come here and made allegations about loss of lives. I am a Muslim, the reason why I am able to do the things I do is because I know that the date of my death has been determined. You can threaten me, but I will not die until the day God has approved that I will die. That is what gives me the courage or conviction to do what I believe. I am not afraid of death. Every human being must face death. There is nothing like that sir. You cannot prove it, you are not a doctor; no autopsy has been taken; there is no pathology. These kinds of allegations have no bases. Even children that are born today die, people that are seventy die, anybody can die at any time.
On revocations
I will appreciate your list and then check my own records. I set up AGIS and I have my records. There were plots revoked from government institutions if you check you will see that they were residential because with the monetization policy we got a directive from Mr. President that all government agencies that have residential plots should be revoked and reallocated.
I want to say that some of the information you have gotten are not correct, I set up Agis and I still have the records. When I found out that some plots of land on water line were revoked and reallocated to my brother, Bashir it was very embarrassing to me and the moment I realized I stopped it. Check the records you will see that I stopped it. It was a mistake. The process of allocation of land takes time; it is officials that do most of the work. I as minister have the discretion but everything is done by officials. I don't sit in my office to pick which plot is allocated to who, it is a process that takes months of work. When you approve twenty seven thousand plots you will make mistakes, but how many are the mistakes. What I am saying, if you revoke a plot that is on water line it should no longer exist as a plot. It should be removed from the CIS so that you won't even see it and make the mistake to allocate it. But Mr. Chairman after all the process that I went through to do this, would you honestly say that after I revoked a plot for being on water line I will knowingly allocate it to, of all people, my blood brother?
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