No Going Back! Wike Insists All ground rents must be paid at stipulated time

Favour Ishember, Abuja

The Minister of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Ezenwo Nyesom Wike, has insisted that all agencies, organisations and individuals must pay their ground rents as stipulated on the Certificates of Ownership.

Wike emphasised this when he played host to the Controller General of the Nigerian Custom service ( NCS) in his office on Thursday.

Responding to a request, the minister said the revoked land will not be given back freely, so that other agencies whose lands were revoked will not come back to make the same demand.

In the words of the Minister:” i not give you back your revoked land so that other agencies will not take advantage of the situation and begin to aske for the return of their revoked.this will only portray that we are not serious”

Wike, who promised to give his maximum support to the Nigerian Custom Service, agreed to give a sizeable portion of land for the building of custom basic schools in the nation’s capital city, said the Service must pay grand rent on the land and must build on it at the stipulated time or risks the revocation of the land.

“In giving you this land, you must pay your ground rent. FCT depend on revenue to survive. I will approve the land but you must development.

We will not give you huge land, but we will give you the size that you would be able to develop”

Earlier in his remark, the acting Director General of the Nigerian Custom Services, Bashir Adewale Adeniyi, said the NCS As an agency of government is majorly revenue generating and needs policies that would help it to drive this curse.

The DG who applauded Wike for his dogged moves to carryout projects, asked the Minister to replicate what he accomplished as a governor of Rivers State.

“You have always leave a track record of everywhere you go to and we believe you will leave FCT with a track record and we are wishing you all the best”

Adeniyi however pleaded that the minister allocate a parcel of land for the Customer Service for the purpose of building Schools in FCT.

“good number of our officers don’t have access to public schools but we want to establish our own basic schools”