*April 21 deadline looms
By Sarah NEGEDU
With just few hours before the Federal Capital Territory Administration begins implementation of its new land reforms, anxiety is mounting among landowners across the FCT, with fears of mass forfeitures and bureaucratic bottlenecks threatening to overshadow the policy’s goals.
The administration had on April 11 2025 unveiled series of land reforms aimed at overhauling land administration and ending the challenges of land racketeering in the nation’s capital, closing revenue leakages, and dismantling a web of overlapping land claims.
The reforms hailed by officials as the boldest shake-up of Abuja’s land administration in nearly two decades, mandates land allottees to settle all associated fees, rents, and charges within 21 days of receiving a Statutory Right of Occupancy, R-of-O.
Failure to comply will render the offer invalid. Additionally, allottees are required to develop their allocated land within two years to prevent land hoarding and encourage timely infrastructure development.
But with implementation kicking off on April 21, the countdown has triggered panic among thousands of land allottees, many of whom now face a race against time to regularize documentation, settle outstanding payments, and verify their legal ownership.
Landowners have expressed concerns over the feasibility of meeting the new requirements within the stipulated timeframe.
Allottees are required to make full payment of fees, charges, and ground rents within 21 days of receiving a Statutory Right of Occupancy.
Also embedded in the reform is a two-year deadline to develop allocated plots as part of the administration’s broader push to curb land speculation and expedite infrastructure growth.
The Senior Special Assistant on Public Communications and Social Media to the FCT Minister, Lere Olayinka, told reporters the reforms are designed to restore transparency and accountability in Abuja’s land dealings.
“The reforms are not punitive,” Olayinka said. “They are necessary to sanitize the system, protect genuine allottees, and recover value lost to inefficiencies and fraud.”
The most vulnerable appear to be owners of land allocated by Area Councils, many of whom now find themselves entangled in a chaotic system that has, for years, operated outside centralized oversight.
Director of Land Administration, Chijioke Nwankwoeze, revealed that out of over 261,000 documents submitted for regularization since a 2006 directive, only 3.2 percent have been processed.
He said the FCTA pledged to expedite the review and validation of these documents, adding that once vetted, statutory titles will be issued and allottees will have 60 days to complete required payments.
“This reform is about aligning Area Council allocations with federal statutory standards and ensuring legitimacy for thousands of landholders,” he said.
Though a six-month grace period has been granted for the regularization of these plots, critics say it may not be enough to resolve over a decade of administrative neglect.
A plot owner in Kuje Area Council who gave his name as Seun Adegbite, warned the Abuja Geographic Information System, AGIS, to brace up for the influx of enquiries as he claimed that many allottees are not aware of the status of their plots.
He said, “Though the reforms will put an end to the issues of multiple allocations on single land, the short term given to regularize our documents may cost us our allocations because most of us don’t even know if our documents were submitted for vetting. I don’t even know the current status of my plot,” Seun Adegbite lamented.
Another land owner who simply gave her name as Mrs. Ukachukwu, expressed dissatisfaction with the six months deadline set.
“We’ve been on this regularization matter for years and heard so many things over the years. Infact it was the FCTA themselves that stopped the process but now they’ve given us just months to clean it all up or risk losing everything?”
While the FCTA has inaugurated special Vetting Teams to fast-track the regularization process, the short timelines and historical inefficiencies have left many skeptical.
