President Muhammadu Buhari has expressed outrage over the buzz surrounding the decision by FCT minister Nyesom Wike to take away a plot of land belonging to a foundation bearing his name.
Affirming that the land does not belong to him, the former president who said he owns only one plot of land in Abuja also disclosed how Buhari passed over the opportunity to acquire a second plot when lands were distributed among his cabinet members
CKNNews reports that Buhari spoke through his spokesman Mallam Garba Shehu following the decision of the FCT Minister to revoke certificates of occupancy issued to allottees who failed to pay required levies on their Abuja lands.
President Buhari who smelt a rat in what he described as the outrageous bill issued to the foundation said:
“As with anything Buhari-and there is no surprise in this at all- there is a lot of buzz in the media on the reported seizure of a piece of land by the authorities of the Federal Capital Territory Abuja, FCTA allegedly belonging to the former president Muhammadu Buhari.
“President Buhari is personally not the owner of the said plot of the land which is allocated in the name a “Muhammadu Buhari Foundation.”
“The Foundation was itself floated by some utilitarian individuals around him who, it must said, went about it in a lawful manner with the support of a number of well-meaning persons.
“But they ran into a roadblock in the land department of the FCDA which handed them an outrageous bill for the issuance of the certificate of occupancy, very high in cost that did not at all compare with the bills given to similar organizations
“It may have been that this was not erroneous, but a deliberate mistake, making the revocation of land as no surprise to anyone.
Buhari passed over opportunity to get a second plot of land in Abuja
“As a person, the former president has a plot of land to his name in Abuja.
“When he and his cabinet members were invited to fill the forms and obtain land during his tenure in office, he returned the form without filling it, saying that he already had a plot of land in the FCT, that those who did not have should be be given. He, therefore, turned down the offer.
“So please let all those jumping up and down in the digital space talking about the rightfulness or the lack of it on the reported seizure of Buhari’s land in Abuja get their facts right, and stop dragging down the name of the former president.”