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By Sunday Ani
Mr. Success Obioma, the Chief Executive Officer of Praco International, a real estate firm, is not happy and for obvious reasons.
While he is working assiduously and trying every trick in the book to meet the housing needs of Abuja residents, he has come under ferocious attacks by those he termed his persecutors, who allegedly misled the FCT authorities to seize his land title deeds and in some instances, demolishing his property worth billions of naira.
This dreadful development, he noted, paints the FCT as a lawless space and chasing away genuine investors who want to deepen infrastructural development in the seat of power.
However, despite the ‘persecution’, Obioma said he remains determined to bridge the housing needs of FCT residents by developing lands and managing the properties of his numerous clients.
In this interview, he details the tortuous path he treads to deliver quality housing. He also made a passionate appeal to the FCT Minister, Nyesom Wike, to return lands forcefully snatched from him, especially now that the court has ruled in his favour.
Squabbles with former FCT Ministers over land matters and court vindication
I don’t have any problem with any minister, whether past or present. The problem is domiciled within the system, informants and advisers around powerful people.
The FCT had a minister in the person of Mohammed Gana, who needed to keep the land records and allocations straight from inception. So, he got approval from the then president of Nigeria, Olusegun Obasanjo, and a ministerial committee on land records and allocation was set up.
I was invited as a stakeholder in land acquisition, development and property management within the FCT in a letter dated April 8, 2002, to appear before the committee on April 10, 2002.
Pathway to redress
As a law abiding citizen doing legitimate real estate business, I went ahead of time to know what I needed to attend the meeting with. I was given a check list of certificates that qualified me to do real estate business, ranging from primary to university level, Corporate Affairs Commission (CAC) registrations, and the original titles to all the plots they claimed were owned by me and my clients.
All these documents were provided by me and they collected and made copies, and gave me acknowledgements dated April 10 and 12 respectively. I asked why they are keeping my originals, and they said no committee of that level would carry out such a huge and national assignment without seeing the original titles to the lands in question.
The membership of the committee comprised all departmental heads, directors and management staff of the FCTA because they were looking for fake documents as was being speculated by enemies of progress that I forged land documents to acquire lands. It gave me the opportunity to prove myself as an honest businessman.
There was nothing wrong with what Mohammed Abba Gana did. The committee did their job and wrote their report, which the next minister, Nasir El-Rufai attached to his petition to the Economic And Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) dated August 29, 2003.
Now, the problem as I said resides within the system. For the 20 years that I was humiliated, traumatised and prosecuted by the EFCC, they never tendered the report of that committee before any of the seven justices of the federal high court that handled the case, and nobody asked why.
For the 20 years that the matter lasted, they couldn’t produce one victim of my illegal land deals to testify. The only director they could bring to court said he didn’t know me as a land fraudster. He was only told to come and tender the ministerial approvals, numbering 17 pages from 1990 to 2001, when I acquired some plots for some people they said were perceived enemies of the government. The ministerial approval was dated November 19, 2001.
This happened to be the only ministerial approval remaining from the 17 copies recovered from me by the land committee. This made me to approach the court for an order to make the EFCC produce the ministerial approvals.
What the EFCC did was to write me a letter accepting that there were ministerial approvals to all the lands linked to me, but till date, the FCTA refused to produce them. So, I don’t have anything against Abba Gana, he set up the committee to set the records straight. El-Rufai didn’t do anything wrong by coming after me based on the information given to him about me. His actions drew me closer to God. It was God and God alone that delivered me from the level of conspiracy and actions taken by enemies of progress and after 20 years, God vindicated me. I thank El-Rufai and the EFCC for making me realise that a man is alone, no matter his gregariousness. None of the big names I had as friends was able to rescue me because the strategy adopted was such that it made me look contagious and those associated with me were scared.
Suing Wike for damages and going against the court order
The FCT minister shouldn’t be charged to court, rather he should charge those who misled him to court and recover the lands they fraudulently acquired and return them to the legitimate owners. The gale of demolition should be checked so that investors wouldn’t lose interest in the FCT. I don’t have a problem with Wike. He is still in office. He could still do things to expose the evil people and their collaborators in the system by publishing the committee report of 2002; that is publishing the documents seized from me for the world to see how fake or original they are. He could still do something by asking members of that committee who are still in service to explain how I was screened. They should be asked how my activities were screened, and my documents verified and they couldn’t identify that there were no ministerial approvals covering over 200 plots of land they linked to me.
Also, he could do something by studying the federal high court judgment as a lawyer to see that there was no stone left unturned by the EFCC and their collaborators to prove their informants wrong. The courts also did well to defend their integrity.
God helped me to defend myself and prove my case beyond all reasonable doubts.
Wike should be made to know that the restoration of my title documents followed due process and he should release the remaining seized documents or restore them. I cannot take any step, and I can’t do anything on my own, when my God is at work. If God touches the Minister to tell me what to do, I would do it if it is what I can do.
Threat to life
Yes, my life is being threatened by those whose properties have not been restored. Most of them have waited since 2003 till date and they are now asking that having been acquitted by a court of competent jurisdiction, what else is holding their documents? They have been alleging that I sold them.
Demolition in absentia
Yes, I am not in the country, but I am ready to suspend what I am doing here to come if my attention is needed by the minister as a solution to the confusion created by the demolition.
