MINNA INDUSTRIAL LAYOUT: DEMOLITION EXERCISE NOT TO WITCH-HUNT ANYONE BUT EFFECT COURT RULING -COMMISSIONER By: Abubakar Hassan
Niger State Commissioner for lands and housing, Barr. Mukhtar Ibrahim Nasale has said that the three days demolition exercise carried out on a segment of Minna Industrial Layout, code named MTP 54 was done to effect the Appeal Court judgement and not to witch-hunt anyone.
The Commissioner made this clarification while addressing Journalists on Sunday, at the conference room of Niger State Urban Development Board, old Secretariat, Minna.
He said the land in question was acquired by the state government in 1984 for industrial purposes, with the aim of addressing the industrial needs of the state which will cover all forms of industrial and economic activities in the state, and that compensation was fully paid to the natives who owned the land.
Barr. Nasale explained that all lands belongs to the government and government has the right to acquire any land for the benefit of the people, but that there are processes to be followed such as identifying the land, meeting with the owners and explaining the reason for the acquisition as well as to pay them compensation, saying that the state government had followed all the processes as regards to MTP 54.
He disclosed that the state government after acquiring the land designed it and provided some infrastructures there, such as electricity, road network and allocated the place to interested persons who wants to develop it for industrial purposes, and that those allocated the place had even started construction on it before one of the original owners of the land went to court claiming that he was not compensated for his portion of the land.
The Commissioner said they have all documents backing the compensation including those who collected the money on behalf of each of the families who owned the entire MTP 54 land, but that the court still ruled against the government.
He said although they had reservation on the ruling but as law abiding government they decided to follow it up through legal process and as such appealed the judgement of the High Court in Minna, with stay of execution on the land in question and won the appeal recently.
He explained that in a normal circumstance when a land is under litigation no one deals on it until it has been resolved but that the natives went ahead and sold the land to people despite efforts of his ministry to enlighten the public through various means, on the status of the land in question.
Barr Nasale added that they won the appeal and the demolition exercise was in compliance with the court judgement, and that even without the court injunction the state has the right to stop any work which has no development permit, as according to the law, one must have an approval from the Urban Development Board before erecting any structure on his land.
He also disclosed that those given tittles of the land when it was converted to residential area in 2004 were allocated alternative land when it was reverted back to industrial area in 2008 after revocation of the earlier residential titles, saying government had every documents backing all the dealings on the MTP 54.
The Commissioner called on the general public to conduct a legal search from the ministry of lands and the state Urban Development Board, on any property they want to acquire. "Any paper given to you, go to ministry of lands to verify it, we have information of all lands," he said.
He also stated that the demolition exercise was to restore sanity for proper development to be carried out on the MTP 54, adding that the state will soon issue out time frame for developing the place and anyone allocated the land and does not have the capacity to develop it should give way for serious developers to come in.
The Permanent Secretary of the Ministry, Dr. Abdul Hussaini and the Acting General Manager of the state Urban Development Board, Mohammed Dzuru Baba directed that after the demolition exercise those allocated the land by the state government should go and develop their lands according to specification of the industrial layout, disclosing that about 125 structures were marked and removed for not observing the development plan of the area.
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