The land was allocated in 2007 for “Park and Recreation.” In other words, as a green area (those who live in Abuja know what that means).
According to Lere Olayinka, in 2022, the allottee sought approval for change of purpose, but the then Minister of FCT declined, as he was supposed to. I am glad he mentioned that, though, because green areas should not be converted to permanent structures or re-purposed, both for environmental, safety, and other reasons.
Actually, in 2022, the Parks and Recreation Department reaffirmed the status and purpose of the land in question as a green area and listed the organizations to which the land had been subdivided as far back as 2007. So, it wasn’t Santos that cut up the land, as Wike’s mouthpiece wants people to believe (see letter attached).
Nevertheless, in 2025, Wike broke ranks with his predecessor and re-purposed or changed the land use from Parks and Recreation to “Public buildings and Corporate buildings.”
Suddenly, the “walkway,” that was not supposed to take permanent structures can now accommodate “public buildings and corporate buildings.” So what is their beef with the Rear Admiral? You can be sure that when they say he should have come for help, what they mean is come and settle.
So, Wike revoked the land and changed the purpose so that he could reallocate it and make money from it, without caring about the implications for both the Abuja master plan and the environment, essentially destroying the painstaking work that El-Rufai did in cleaning up Abuja and restoring the Abuja master plan.
It would be interesting to know who the new beneficiaries or allottees of that land are. I challenge this spokesperson and the Minister to name who the new allottees are for Nigerians to know.
By the way, this is not an isolated case. This is just one out of the several cases of arbitrary revocation and reallocation of green areas to individuals for residential and other permanent development purposes under Wike, in contravention of the Abuja master plan.
We all saw the video of a lady who took years legitimately developing a green area, employing lots of Nigerians, only for Wike to roll in his bulldozers to take it all down after reallocating the land to another individual (and not for parks and recreation).
Yet, this Lere Olayinka guy goes on air to spew gibberish in an attempt to deceive and pull the wool over everyone’s eyes.
Some people can keep supporting and enabling impunity, wickedness, and evil, but a day of reckoning shall surely come.
