Wike reads riot act to FCT landlords, threatens to demolish buildings to restore city’s master plan

The new Federal Capital Territory (FCT) Minister, Mr Nyesom Wike, has vowed to restore the Abuja master plan and threatened to demolish buildings that distort the plan.

The immediate past Rivers Governor made the pledge in his maiden news conference while assuming office in Abuja on Monday, shortly after he took the oath of office.

Persecondnews reports that Wike and 44 other ministers took their oaths of office and allegiance before President Bola Tinubu.

The minister also said land allottees who have been given Certificates of Occupancy but failed to develop them would also lose their lands to give way to those ready to build.

He said: “All those people who are distorting the master plan of Abuja, too bad! If you know you have built where you are not supposed to build, it will go down.

“Be you a minister or ambassador, if you know you have developed where you are not supposed to develop, your house must go down.

“Those who have taken over the green areas to build, sorry, our parks must come back. The green areas must come back. If you hate green, you hate yourself.

“Those who have taken over the parks and green areas as where you now do restaurants, we would not accept that. It will go down.

“And all those people who are doing land racketeering, that period is over. And those that the government have allocated lands to them and they refused to develop, the land is gone.”

On whether he would revoke the lands, Wike said: “I’m going to revoke them because I don’t understand how the land that you may have paid N200,000 for you now begin to find who will buy it for N2 billion. Who does that?

“We will take back our land and give to those who want to develop and you must sign that you must develop at a certain time.”