LEADERSHIP investigations revealed that FCDA’s action was informed by a petition written to it by residents of the estate located on Plot 67 Kafe District, Abuja.
In the petition dated January 11, 2013, which was received at the office of the director, department of mass housing, signed by four lawyers: Ibekwe Maureen, M. S. Stanley, Prisca Chikwendu, Nnamdi Samuel Nwafor and Dr. Adebiyi Michael Adebayo on behalf of the residents, the affected residents described Winning Clause Limited’s action as illegal and against the FCT administration’s guideline for mass housing projects in Abuja.
A source who craved anonymity, told LEADERSHIP that sometime between 2009/2010, one Alhaji Haruna Kabiru, the chairman/CEO of the Saraha Homes Limited, a known estate developer in Abuja, sold different properties for the residents on Plot 67, Kafe District, Abuja and they were shown a copy of a letter in the name of Pro-Form (West Africa) Limited, a partnership agreement between the Pro-Form and the Saraha Homes Limited and a letter of authority, investing power on Saraha to manage and superintend the estate. This was subsequently followed by letters of offers to various buyers who have been living in the estate since 2009.
Available records show that the number of completed duplexes being occupied by their owners at the time of the petition are about 200.
“But quite surprisingly and to the consternation of every home owner, about the month of November 2012, a group of people in the name of the Winning Clause Limited, came to paste quit notices on our buildings, claiming ownership of Plot 67,” the aggrieved residents said in the petition obtained by LEADERSHIP.
Based on that, the residents were said to have approached Mr. P I N Ikwueto (SAN), who claimed to be the chairman of the Winning Cluase Limited in his office to find out why the notices were pasted on their buildings and were told that the allocation to the Pro-Form West Africa Limited had been revoked and reallocated to Winning Clause in 2011. The residents wondered why the FCDA should revoke a plot that people had built houses and were living in since 2009 and reallocating it to another firm in 2011.
“On or about December 3, 2012, some people who claimed to be men from the department of the development control of the FCDA came with bulldozers to demolish our buildings in the estate. According to the Winning Clause people, the men came at their behest,” the residents added.
LEADERSHIP gathered that it was in a move to avoid the demolition of their buildings that the residents approached the Winning Clause Limited to find ways of resolving the matter.
The chairman of the Winning Clause Limited in his response to the residents was said to have told them that the only condition to prevent the houses from being demolished was for each house owner to pay the sum of N15 million to him, apart from the contravention and infrastructure fees.
But a senior officer of the mass housing department who spoke with LEADERSHIP on the condition of anonymity, described the action of the Winning Clause as illegal and questionable.
This is even as it was reliably gathered that there was no record of the said allocation to the Winning Clause Limited at the mass housing department, to suggest that the firm had applied for and was granted approval to carry out mass housing development project in the FCT.
“This is what we have been saying; the mess was created before the present minister came in. How can anybody claim to have revoked a plot people have been living at and reallocate it to a firm that never applied for mass housing project from us? We shall get to the root of the matter. The matter will get to the minister’s office,” the FCDA official told LEADERSHIP.
No official of the Winning Clause Limited was ready to comment on the matter.
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