The House of Representatives Committee on investigation of alleged land allocation and racketeering in the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) have summoned the Commandant General of the Nigerian Security and Civil Defence Corps (NSCDC), Dr. Olu Abolurin over an alleged land fraud involving 186 plots of land in the FCT.
Abuneme Okeke, a representative of the allottees said they bought the plots from a man identified as a consultant and NSCDC officer who always wore an NSCDC uniform and operated from the NSCDC office in Gudu. He said the unsuspecting members of the public were hoodwinked due to the man’s affiliation with NSCDC.
“We are talking of inside the civil defence office, not outside, not even outside the fence but right inside”, Okeke said.
“Apart from that, the receipt we were issued after payment to an account name Denamy Nigerian Limited (32223405192110) had civil defense logo and coat of arms on it. We are not illiterates, so we asked questions and the principal officer showed us approvals from Development Control Department of the FCDA. We even had to pay for the fencing of the Goza estate which was not supposed to be,” Okeke told the committee.
According to him,”people were buying this land, which was not cheap at between N800,000 and N1.2million because everybody believed that if it was coming from an institution of government, it must be genuine”.
The scam was discovered when agents of the Federal Capital development Authority began to mark some of the structures on the land for demolition.
“They said the estate has been marked for the Centenary Village, we are against that but the FCDA came and pulled down our houses without compensating us contrary to what we were told and in spite of several representations we made to the FCDA,” he added.
The House committee has also invited the Federal Capital Territory Minister.