Garba Shehu, spokesperson to former President Muhammadu Buhari, says his principal does not own any land titles recently revoked by Nyesom Wike, minister of the federal capital territory (FCT).
On Thursday, the federal capital territory administration (FCTA) published a public notice, highlighting the names of individuals and companies whose land titles have been revoked.
The FCTA said the affected title owners failed to pay for their certificates of occupancy (C-of-O) for the revoked plots.
The plots are located in the highbrow Maitama district of the nation’s capital.
The revocation came two weeks after the FCTA published a list of alleged land title debtors.
Defaulters were given two weeks from November 26 to pay for their C-of-O.
Among those whose C-of-O were revoked, according to the notice, are the Muhammadu Buhari Trust Foundation; Walter Onnoghen, former chief justice of Nigeria (CJN); Abbas Tajudeen, speaker of the house of representatives; George Akume, secretary to the government of the federation (SGF); Regina, his wife; and Uba Sani, governor of Kaduna.
However, in a statement, Shehu said the revoked land was allocated to the “Muhammadu Buhari Foundation,” which was created with the name of the former president.
The former presidential spokesperson said the individuals who created the foundation could not pay for the C-of-O of the land because they were presented with an “outrageous” bill.
“The former president is personally not the owner of the said plot of land, which is allocated in the name of the Muhammadu Buhari Foundation,” the statement reads.
“The foundation was itself floated by some utilitarian individuals around him, who, it must be 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.
“As a person, the former president has a plot of land to his name in Abuja.”
