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'How Obasanjo, El-Rufai, associates got Abuja plots'
IT was another day of shock at the hearing of the Senate Committee on Allocation and Revocation of Plots of Land in Abuja when it emerged that a property belonging to the Universal Basic Education (UBE) was revoked and given to Obasanjo Farms, a day before the former President left office.
The General Manager of Abuja Geographic Information Services (AGIS), Mr. Ismaila Iro, who testified before the committee declared that 15 plots were acquired by Obasanjo and his family members during the life of the regime.
Iro said that the UBE's plot was revoked for non-development and re-allocated to a private body called Interprojects.
But on May 28 2007, the same plot was revoked and re-allocated to Obasanjo Farms the same day.
Documents presented by the AGIS which are in the possession of the Senate Committee, named members of the Obasanjo and El-Rufai families who benefited from land allocations.
The plots allocated to the Obasanjo family included one in Maitama on March 3, 1988, while the late Stella Obasanjo was allocated a residential plot in Jabi on September 17, 1993.
Other details showed that the Obasanjos got eight plots between 1988 and 2003 as well as 11 between 2004 and 2007.
The late Stella Obasanjo was allocated a residential plot in Maitama marked A06 (Plot 3446). She got another residential plot in Katampe, marked B19 (plot 150) on April 14, 2002.
Other land allocations to the Obasanjos include those of Olugbenga Obasanjo (Maitama), September 12, 2000, another plot in Guzape on April 11, 2002; Oludayo Obasanjo got a residential plot on May 10, 2003; Iyabo Obasanjo (Asokoro, residential plot on January 26, 2005); Oluwasegun Obasanjo (Jabi) January 26, 2005; Obasanjo Farms Nigeria Limited (Kuje) June 27, 2005; Adeboye Obasanjo (Maitama) June 27, 2005; Olusegun Babatunde Obasanjo (Maitama) January 13, 2006; and Oluwafunke Obihele Obasanjo (Garki II) March 25, 2006. Others include: Oludare Victor Obasanjo (Garki 11) November 9, 2006; Obasanjo Olufolake (Wuye) May 15, 2007 and Obasanjo Farms Nigeria Limited (a commercial plot at Gwarimpa) on May 24, 2007.
It was also disclosed that some plots were allocated to El-Rufai and members of his family as listed below.
They include: Ali Rufai (Katampe Extension) August 12, 2004; Asia Ahmad El-Rufai (Asokoro), January 26, 2005; Hadiza Isma El-Rufai (Asokoro) January 26, 2005; Bashir Ahmad El-Rufai (Wuse 11) January 26, 2005; Ibrahim El-Rufai (Maitama) June 27, 2005; Bashir El-Rufai (Asokoro) May 10, 2007; El-Rufai and Partners (Commercial plot at Jahi) May 10, 2007; Zainab Rufai (Katampe extension) May 10, 2007; Hauwa Aliyu El-Rufai (Nyanya),May 10, 2007 and Maryam Bashir El-Rufai (Kubwa) May 19, 2007.
In response to some of the allegations, Chief of Staff to the former FCT Minister, Malam Balarabe Lawal, said El-Rufai acted within his powers based on information available to him.
Lawal, in a statement, said: "Every Nigerian is entitled to a plot of land in Abuja in accordance with the Land Use Act. If you legally apply to AGIS for a plot of land, it is your right to be allocated one. Members of Obasanjo's family and those of El-Rufai's immediate and extended families are Nigerians.
"In any case, the former minister followed due process and was careful not to breach any law in this circumstance. Besides, El-Rufai is not a greedy person. He could have used his office to grab more land."
He said that the total subsisting allocations to the family of El-Rufai under his watch were just 10 plots, adding that the list forwarded to the committee which represented the plots allocated to members of the former FCT minister's family was fake.
The allocation of a 94-hectre plot of land to the American Hospital by the last FCT administration also attracted the attention of the panel at its sitting yesterday.
It expressed shock that plots previously allocated to Nigerians were revoked and allocated to the hospital without the knowledge of the earlier allottees.
But speaking for the American Hospital, the Chairman of the Hospital, Dr. Ifeanyi Obiakwo, said the allocation of the plot was done totally in line with the existing rules and regulations guiding such matters.
Meanwhile, the immediate past Inspector-General of Police, Mr. Sunday Ehindero, yesterday denied any knowledge of the deployment of some policemen to eject the former Code of Conduct Tribunal Chairman, Justice Bashir Sambo, from his official residence in Maitama, Abuja.
He, however, charged the panel to invite the Commissioner of Police in the FCT at that time for questioning over the case saying that all such orders would normally come from the Police Commissioner.
"I am not aware of the court order and I have not knowingly disobeyed any court order. It would have been an anathema for me to be used to eject the former judicial officer. I am not aware that any Deputy Inspector-General of Police sent policemen to Justice Sambo's house, let alone working against their withdrawal," he said.
But when the committee members put it to him that the IG should take responsibility for all the actions taken by any police man, Ehindero said: "As IG, I am not expected to know what happened in every state of the federation. If anybody says that El-Rufai phoned me to provide security for that operation, that is hearsay. The nature of the FCT administration at that time was that the minister had some policemen attached to him and those ones could be used.
"If the situation had been made clear to me as it is to me now, those policemen would have been brought to book the constitution never mandated the FCT Minister to communicate with the IGP about anywhere he was going with the policemen attached to his office. But if it is true that they disobeyed an existing court order those policemen would have been brought to book."
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