Buhari: My Personal Land Not Revoked by FCTA

•Contentious land belongs to Muhammadu BuhariFoundation

•Says he rejected land allocated to him as President

Deji Elumoye in Abuja

Former President Muhammadu Buhari has formally reacted to news making the rounds that the Federal Capital Territory Administration (FCTA) revoked his plot of land in a highbrow area of Abuja

Buhari, in a release issued on Thursday by his spokesperson, Mallam Garba Shehu, stated that his personal land was never revoked or confiscated by government.

Rather, he said the land in contention belonged to Muhammadu Buhari Foundation, which was floated by certain utilitarian individuals who met a brick wall in the course of processing the land’s Certificate of Occupancy. 

The ex-president, who alluded to the fact that he owned a plot of land in Abuja, pointed out that he rejected another offer of  land in the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) while serving as President between 2015 and 2023.

Buhari, in the release, stated, “As with anything Buhari – and there is no surprise in this at all – there is a lot of buzz in the media on the reported seizure of a piece of land by the authorities of the Federal Capital Territory Abuja, FCTA, allegedly belonging to the former president, Muhammadu Buhari.

“President Buhari is personally not the owner of the said plot of the land, which is allocated in the name a ‘Muhammadu Buhari Foundation.’ 

“The foundation was itself floated by some utilitarian individuals around him, who, it must said, went about it in a lawful manner with the support of a number of well-meaning persons.

“But they ran into a roadblock in the land department of the FCDA, which handed them an outrageous bill for the issuance of the certificate of occupancy, very high in cost that did not at all compare with the bills given to similar organisations.

“It may have been that this was not erroneous, but a deliberate mistake, making the revocation of land as no surprise to anyone.

“As a person, the former president has a plot of land to his name in Abuja.

“When he and his cabinet members were invited to fill the forms and obtain land during his tenure in office, he returned the form without filling it, saying that he already had a plot of land in the FCT, that those who did not have should be given. He, therefore, turned down the offer.

“So, please, let all those jumping up and down in the digital space talking about the rightfulness or the lack of it on the reported seizure of Buhari’s land in Abuja get their facts right, and stop dragging down the name of the former president.”