Wike threatens to seal off ground rent defaulters’ buildings

• FCT minister rejects ‘double-faced’ accusation, defends service in APC govt

Federal Capital Territory (FCT) Minister Nyesom Wike has threatened to seal the properties of defaulting property owners who have not paid their ground rents.

The minister announced this during his monthly media chat yesterday in Abuja and monitored by our correspondent.

President Bola Tinubu had given a two-week ultimatum to defaulters of the ground rent to pay within the period or face sanction, after the administration began sealing the properties of defaulters on May 26.

Wike said: “You should know what I’m going to do next. I thank God the President said two weeks. We are at more than three months.

“That is Nigeria for you. We have just finished a programme of inaugurating projects. Very soon, we are going to seal up all those properties. I am going to seal them up.”

The FCT minister decried the failure of some defaulters to pay up their debts, despite the President’s period of grace.

He noted that without recovery of the rent, the FCT Administration would not carry out infrastructure developments.

Wike added: “You can’t deny us the taxes we will use for development. You’re talking about the health sector now; you’re talking about education. What have we done in other sectors? With what? You want this. Pay us the taxes that you should pay, but you said no.

“We have listened to Mr. President. In his wisdom, he has said: give them two weeks, give them one month. We have done that. Some have complied, some have refused to comply.

“Tomorrow, by the time you start doing this, of course, the normal politics will come up. I will not listen to that.

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“Bear it in mind: I won’t do it. If you have not complied, if you have not paid, we are going to seal it up. There’s no magic of talking long. You can blackmail as you want. You can go to Arise, stay there for how many hours. We are going to carry it out.”

The FCT minister also refuted allegations of political treachery, defending his decision to serve in President Tinubu’s All Progressives Congress (APC) administration while maintaining his membership of the main opposition Peoples Democratic Party (PDP).

Wike said he took serious exception to an interviewer who drew a parallel between him and the two-faced Roman god, Janus.

The minister dismissed the comparison, arguing that his actions have been transparent and consistent.

He said: “I am not double-faced. I take very serious exception to that. No. They (Atiku and his allies) could not say they saw me in their campaigns; that I spoke in their favour and then I went and did a different thing. They would have meant double face. From day one, I said no.

“Two, I said, having not supported them, who am I going to support in the South? There were two alternative parties – the APC and the LP. In my judgement, I looked at who could win the election and who had the capacity to take Nigeria away from where we were. And I was right. Bola Ahmed Tinubu won the election.”

Wike recalled that the late Chief Bola Ige was a member of the defunct Alliance for Democracy (AD) when he served in the PDP administration of President Olusegun Obasanjo. “So, did Bola Ige have a double face?” he queried.

During the live broadcast, the minister also declared that the Abuja City Walk, modeled after Dubai’s iconic urban boulevard, will replace the long-abandoned Abuja Technology Village, whose land allocations were recently revoked due to non-performance and alleged land racketeering.

Wike accused the supposed developers of the Abuja Technology Village of using the land for commercial rent and storage purposes instead of fulfilling their original development commitments.

“The FCTA provided the infrastructure for more than 20 years, and nothing has been done. You go there, they have rented out the place, you see where NNPC tankers are parked, and they collect money. So many people are now claiming to have C of Os. I said okay, I must resolve this problem. There is nothing called Abuja Technology Village,” he said.