Ground rent: Stop hating Wike, you’re ignorant of Land Use Act, minister’s aide tells FCT senator

Lere Olayinka, the Senior Special Assistant on Public Communications and Social Media to the Minister of the Federal Capital Territory, Nyesom Wike, has urged the senator representing the FCT, Ireti Kingibe, to stop hating the minister.

Olayinka said Kingibe has been harbouring hatred against Wike, saying the senator should stop seeing issues from the angle of “I hate Wike”.

Olayinka said this in a statement issued on Thursday, May 29, 2025.

Describing the senator’s comment on the enforcement of payment of ground rent as ridiculously illogical, the minister’s spokesperson said land allocation is not unconditional, noting that there are conditions that must be met and one of them is annual payment of ground rent.

The lawmaker had said the sealing of properties in Abuja over unpaid ground rents is being carried out outside the bounds of the law.

Olayinka said Kingibe’s recent diatribe against Wike was a further advertisement of her ignorance of the Land Use Act and penchant for seeking cheap political gains on every issue.

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He stated: “It is ridiculously embarrassing that a serving Senator of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, whose duty is to make laws is ignorant of the provisions of Section 28, Subsections (a) and (b) of the Land Use Act.

“For the education of Senator Kingibe, Section 28, Subsections (a) and (b) of the Land Use Act provides that ‘The Government may revoke a Statutory Right of Occupancy on the ground of; (a) a breach of any of the provisions which a certificate of occupancy is by Section 10 deemed to contain; and (b) a breach of any term contained in the Certificate of Occupancy.

“Now, is annual payment of Ground Rent not part of the terms contained in the Certificate of Occupancy? Or Senator Kingibe just chose to advertise her myopic attitude to anything Wike?”

Olayinka said the lawmaker should rather have said that “land owners in the FCT have rights to refuse to pay necessary bills stated in the Certificate of Occupancy issued to them, and that when they so do, the government should simply pick samba and tambourine, and sing their praises.”

“Now, if land allottees refused to pay Ground Rent for 10 to 43 years, Senator Ireti Kingibe will just look away if she was the FCT Minister,” the minister’s aide noted.

The Star