Development and investments in properties and real estate are very lucrative and profitable ventures. But, many at times the genuine and law abiding investors tend to be discouraged due to the sharp practices and absence of decorum by the activities of those referred to as land grabbers.
Meanwhile, land accessibility in Abuja is the exclusive reserve of the super income group. Mostly, due to the absence of transparency and sincerity, in the midst of persistent stringent rule for the official accessibility. At the same time custodians of the land break the rules, while allowing land speculators to continue having their field days through which many high government functionaries clandestinely benefit.
In the literatures, Land Grabbing is the large-scale, often illicit or unethical acquisition of land through purchase or lease by corporations, governments, or individuals, frequently dispossessing local communities. Grabbers often use fraudulent documentation, force, illegal encroachment, and collusion with corrupt officials to seize land, especially impacting communal and agricultural areas.
Land grabbing in Abuja is different from the normal ones affecting communal and agricultural lands. Here, it is targeted at municipal and urban lands. It involves the acquisition of lands through illegal or fraudulent ways mostly for sale to innocent and unsuspecting citizens who have genuine intentions for development. The same lands could be sold to multiple interests due to the wanton desire for illegitimate material acquisition.
Unfortunately, the land which must be protected and preserved for essential use is recklessly being allocated in gross violation of the laid down procedure. Instead of applying to own land for the purpose of development, Abuja land is being acquired as a commodity for speculation. The ravenous demand for land allocation in Abuja, most especially, requests from the people in power and those with influence, is such that no administration shall be able to satisfy.
Over the years, the penchant for acquiring land in Abuja has become a syndrome to many. The whole of Abuja from Phase I to IV as originally conceived became grossly inadequate and it led to the introduction of the fifth phase by subsequent administration. Lands that are budgeted for specific uses from the original concept such as open spaces, recreation, transportation infrastructure, light industry and others are now being violated.
In one of the typical cases, a fraudulent element with the intention of mischief approach a property owner with the pretext of buying his land. Upon the consent of the land owner, subject to the payment of the agreed price, the buyer made part payment, with the promise of completing the balance later. Out of trust the land owner accepted the part payment while waiting for the completion.
Not quite long the property owner received a report that his land was under construction by an unknown developer. He quickly ran to the Development Control Department and laid his complain for intervention. He was surprise, when told that a building plan approval was granted for the development.
Further investigation revealed that it was a copy of the same title document he holds as the owner that was used for the application in which approval was granted, not any other. In order to prove that the land truly belongs to him, he produced the original Certificate of Occupancy at his possession and that the application for building permit was not made with his consent.What it means is that, there was attempt for a fraudulent takeover of the land using the photocopy. That was a typical land grabbing phenomenon.
The Control Department marked and stopped the development on site and summoned whoever was developing with the demand for the production of the original, not copy of the Certificate of Occupancy. That was when it was discovered that the developer was the same person that made payment for only a fraction of the agreed amount.
The land grabber refused to complete the balance,but went ahead to fraudulently got building permit and used the approval to lure unsuspecting subscribers who paid for the ownerships of the housing units that are fraudulently under construction. Some of them were security personnel, whom he sourced with incentives of low prices. They never knew that that were beingmischievously recruited to help him fight the land owner when the ownership crisis commence.
On two occasions the structure on the site were demolished by the Authority, but the recalcitrant and paranoid grabber, rebuilt. But, in the final run even the officers he lured to support his crime turned round against him, because the lies could never be sustainedand images were on the verge of being tarnished. Land grabbing is a syndrome in which the criminal made himself to believe that by all means he would eventually succeed in owning the land being grabbed.
It was the above experience that informed the Authority to be requesting for sighting the original Certificate of Occupancy before the granting of Building plans approval when it was finally processed.
The above land grabber is only a baby in comparison with the ones officially committed by the allocation of large scale and humongous land sizes by those in power, accompanied with clear changes in land uses. We can only have solution to the land grabbing syndrome when our leaders show example. Otherwise, it only remains a wishful thinking.
