The House of Representatives Committee on Public Petitions has summoned the Minister of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Muhammad Musa Bello, the Federal Capital Territory Administration (FCTA) and others over alleged allocation of a 55- hectare estate without an access road.
The summons was also hinged on criminal breach of peace and destruction of the ECOWAS gate/back fence of the ECOWAS Estate, Abuja, by one Chief D. N. Ejiogu and other developers.
The summons followed a petition by the ECOWAS Estates Residents Association to the Committee alleging that the activities of land speculators within and around the vicinity of the ECOWAS estate had led to breakdown of law and order as a result of the attempt to cause a thoroughfare through the Estate to an illegal 55 hectares estate among other allegations.
According to the summons dated February 15, 2022, and signed by the chairman of the Committee, those summoned are to appear in person before the Committee on Wednesday, March 9, 2022 at 2:00pm.
The petition read in part, “Whereas the above named petition is now pending before this Committee and the particulars of the petition aforesaid are already within your knowledge and whereas the petition has been assigned to be heard by the Committee for determination.”
According to the petition signed by the chairman of the Association, Dr. Austin Maho, “the most brazen act of impunity and lawlessness now being perpetrated by some developers in cohort with officials of the FCTA is the attempt to make ECOWAS Estate a thoroughfare to a 55 hectares Illegal estate they have created at the foot of the hill outside the ECOWAS estate perimeter, which is actually a buffer zone.”
Maho said the Association had written several petitions to the minister on the development, and the illegal land grabbing activities going on in the Estate and Katampe extension in general which prompted the minister to eventually paid a working visit to the estate on October 22, 2021, where he made key pronouncements that if a 55 hectares estate was designed without an access road, it meant it was an “illegal estate.”
Consequently, the minister gave a directive that the illegal access through ECOWAS estate be blocked in addition to the suspension of all building plans approvals within the vicinity of ECOWAS estate as well as setting up of a Committee to look into the matter.
The petitioners, however, regretted that on January 31, 2022, at about 2:20pm, one Chief Ejiogu, of CityGate Homes Abuja, one of the developers of the illegal estate and one other of Rock Homes and Garden Estate invaded ECOWAS estate and demolished the main gate/back fence.
