The Minister of the Federal Capital Territory, Bala Mohammed has said that he had committed no wrong by re-allocating a plot of land owned by former First Lady, Turai Yar’Adua to the African First Ladies Peace Mission,AFLPM, chaired by Patience Jonathan.
DailyPost had reported earlier that, an Abuja High Court had on Thursday chided the Minister for revoking the land which was formally owned by Turai’s organisation, Women and Youth Empowerment Foundation,WAYEF.
A statement issued by the Minister’s spokesman, Nosike Ogbuenyi, reads: “The attention of the Federal Capital Territory Administration (FCTA) has been drawn to the judgement by an Abuja High Court regarding the suit between the FCTA and the NGO of the immediate past First Lady, Hajia Turai Yar’Adua, Women and Youth Empowerment Foundation,WAYEF, over the plot of land allocated to the African First Ladies Peace Mission,AFLPM, an international institution affiliated to the African Union,AU.
“The FCTA wishes to clarify that it is currently undertaking a preliminary study of the judgement while awaiting the Certified True Copy (CTC) before further processes.
“In the meantime, the FCTA wishes to clarify that the judgement delivered pertained to the process followed in the revocation of the said plot of land and that the court case was between the FCTA and Hajia Turai YarÁdua’s NGO, WAYEF.
“The FCTA equally wishes to inform the general public that it moved to revoke the purported re-allocation as a legitimate action to rectify the anomaly in reallocating a plot meant for public institution to a private organization.
It added that former First Lady, Hajia Turai challenged the action of the FCTA in court after turning down several offers to secure an alternative plot in Phase One of the Federal Capital City for WAYEF, her NGO.
Continuing, “For the avoidance of doubt, the FCTA wishes to restate that the litigation was an affair between it and Hajia Turai Yar’adua’s NGO, and that neither the African First Ladies Peace Mission,AFLPM, the original allottee of the land, nor Dame Patience Jonathan, who is the incumbent First Lady of the Federal Republic of Nigeria and President of the African continental body, AFPM, was party to the suit at the Abuja High Court.
“The FCTA further wishes to clarify that the land in question was FIRST allocated to the African First Ladies Peace Mission during the tenure of Hajia Turai Yar’Adua as the First Lady of Nigeria and President of the AFLPM. The records show that the said plot of land was wrongly re-designed and reallocated to WAYEF, Turai’s NGO in her twilight days as the First Lady in 2010.
“The FCTA found the action of reallocating a public land to a private NGO inappropriate and therefore took proper action to revoke the reallocation and restored the land to the original allottee, the AFLPM. The revocation was done based on the powers conferred on the Hon. Minister of FCT by the Land Use Act. Thus the action was taken in the overall public interest and for that reason alone.
The ministry recalled that a former Minister of FCT who made the first allocation of the said land to AFLPM, Dr Aliyu Umar Modibbo had publicly clarified that the disputed land was actually allocated by him, as the then FCT Minister to the AFLPM and not to Hajia Turai’s NGO, WAYEF.
“In view of the foregoing, the FCT Administration wishes to state categorically that the judgment by the FCT High Court is squarely on a case between the FCT Administration and Hajia Turai Yar Ádua. The FCTA will make further statements on this matter after going through the certified details of the judgement. The FCTA remains committed to the rule of law and the development of FCT in line with the provisions of the Abuja Master Plan,” it said
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