How Black Qoral Concepts is Transforming Ikeja Police Officers Quarters

Bennett Oghifo

In the heart of Nigeria’s economic centre, where the symphony of car horns and bustling activities of its vibrant population converge to mark an urban setting, once stood edifices that housed gallant members of the Nigeria Police devoted to protecting the people. 

Over the years, with little maintenance to guarantee its longevity, the once resplendent structures of the Police Officers Quarters in Ikeja now carry scars of neglect; the paint peeling, and the rooftops sagging under their weight, with cracks running like veins across the walls. This deplorable state isn’t specific to the Ikeja barracks. It is only a representation of the general living condition in many police barracks across the country. 

However, this is changing, one block of flats at a time. The pointer came with a recent facelift received with the commissioning of two modern buildings nestling 20 flats that were conceptualised and executed by Black Qoral Concepts Limited, an indigenous real estate development firm.

The project was seeded when the Executive Director, Black Qoral, Abubakar Sheidu approached and engaged the Nigeria Police Force in 2018 for the sole purpose of redeveloping the police settlement to reflect the status of the officers posted to the quarters, but more importantly, to provide safer and more functional homes.

As of January 27, 2021, 10 officers and their dependents were relocated from the worst-hit buildings to the new site, marking the start of the transition from the old, decrepit buildings.

“There’s a bit of nostalgia involved. Our late father Ahmadu Sheidu used to be a police officer, and at one point, the Lagos State Police Commissioner, and at one point Commandant, Police College Ikeja,” Sheidu explained.

“We used to visit here then, about 30-plus years ago. We observed that the houses were falling, so we made a proposition to the police to redevelop the 66 flats they had into 80 new modern flats befitting of senior police officers, which is what this place is supposed to be. People who are supposed to reside here are originally supposed to be Assistant Commissioners of Police and above. As we speak, in these quarters, there are seven Deputy Commissioners of Police, and almost half of the DPOs in Lagos, and area commanders live here.”

With plans to enclose the police barracks with an 11 feet perimeter fence, Sheidu says the blocks of flats will be fitted with recreational facilities, and guarantee exclusivity through the provision of exit and entry points. He also hinted at the reformed approaches that would be taken up by the Nigerian Police Force to ensure that prospective and existing blocks of flats are maintained.

“Under the new regimen, the works department of the Nigeria Police Force now, under this current IG, set up a maintenance department, and it is headed by AIG Rudolph Obe, to take cognizance of the fact that every redevelopment they have of the police barracks in Nigeria, they assemble and assigned to them a maintenance team to be in situ.

“Police-civilian relations are difficult, which means, we cannot bring our independent facility managers and say that they should manage the place. How are they going to, for instance, ask them to pay a service charge? In the event they don’t pay a service charge, how are they going to enforce it against police officers? So, it is required that for police facilities, facility management should be done by police officers because those are the ones who can then come up with things like deterrence, come up with extensions for those who don’t pay and things like that, which we cannot do.”

Having built the first apartment in just under one year, the project suffered a series of delays in the course of redevelopment. Delays Sheidu termed ‘bureaucratic in nature’. He elaborated that the agreement Black Qoral entered with the Nigeria Police Force was not foolproof initially.

“I know for a fact that one cannot alienate government property without the Federal Executive Council’s (FEC) approval. So, we commenced the process with the Infrastructure Concession Regulatory Commission (ICRC) before eventually it went to FEC, and we got the approval. We slowed down a bit on the work because we were investing our funds. We do not have any loans that we took, so we didn’t have any clock ticking against us for repayment.

“We were saying that we require to, at least, have all the paperwork done before we commit our resources further in this venture. That was why after we had built this superstructure of this one, we kind of ceased to work and instead concentrated all our attention on ensuring that we obtain all those necessary certificates in order to get the FEC approval, which now makes it inviolable between us and them because it’s former President Buhari who accepted the concession. So, on the strength of that, we’ve now gone back to work, which is why in three months’ time, we will have completed this upcoming structure. And by the end of October, we’ll have 10 officers there,’ Sheidu said. 

According to Sheidu, the plan is to relocate only active serving officers. He noted that about half of the population in the quarters are active serving officers, with the rest of the population ineligible to stay in the quarter due to their retirement status. By his estimates, 40 flats will adequately accommodate serving officers, with the remaining 40 flats available to house more unhoused officers. 

“In the course of events, before we could put pen to paper, the Presidential Implementation Committee on Alienation of Federal Government Landed Property did some sort of magic and said they had sold police houses, all those bungalows which were on 2.1 hectares,” Sheidu revealed.

“This is surprising considering that there’s a circular which we were privy to, which had already precluded the sale under Presidential Implementation Council of any house for the Nigeria Police Force by the nature of their jobs, that it should not fall under the civil service housing rules, because they get transferred from state-to-state.”

Speaking on the unusual case of retired officers retaining their flats, he elaborated that the misconception on the part of the officer stemmed from the monetisation policy of former President Olusegun Obasanjo in 2002 where civil servants’ allowances, fringe benefits and entitlements are paid to them through their monthly salaries.

“Anybody who was serving and was residing in any house provided by the federal government of Nigeria, had the right of first refusal to buy the premises. And they were selling it to them. In Ikoyi, they were selling properties for N100 million, N80 million. So, what the people used to do then was, since they can’t afford the N70 million, they go out and offer it for like N120 million to somebody. He gives them N70 million to pay to the government and then he gives N50 million to them, and then they vacate the place.

“Civil servants, given the right of the first option, thought that it included policemen. Whereas there was an express circular then, that had stated it in very clear terms that by the nonstationary nature of police work, because we don’t have state police, we have federal police, which means that today you can be serving in Lagos, tomorrow, you could be in Maiduguri. If the person staying in Lagos sits down in the house and says he wants to buy it and is transferred to Maiduguri, that deprives the person coming to replace him in Lagos of residence. So they exempted them for that reason.”

With this misconstrued notion on the part of the police officers, several media wars were launched against the project.

“They (police officers) only came on board when we got the then Inspector General of Police, M.A. Adamu came here and commissioned, and handed over the keys of the first 10 flats to the first set of officers who were moving from the old place. That’s when it dawned on them that this is something that has been done to improve their lot,” Sheidu revealed.

Currently, the firm is working arduously to meet its June 2025 deadline of delivering all 80 flats to meet the housing demands of police officers posted to the quarters. This completion would mark the commencement of construction on an earmarked area of the police quarters allocated to Black Qoral to provide housing to the general public.

“There will be 80 flats on this side. And on this side, is our return on investment. We will demolish all the houses in this place, in a nutshell. We will then build 80 flats for the police force on one side of it. We’ll take the remaining side of it for ourselves and then build houses for sale to members of the public. So the money we have invested into building their houses is in exchange for their land that we then take in return,” Sheidu said.