FHA Distances from Allegations of Land Grabbing, Administrative High Handedness
By Our Reporter
The Federal Housing Authority, FHA has described as erroneous and misleading the alleged land grabbing levelled against the management of the Authority under the leadership of Hon. Oyetunde Ojo by the coalition of Estate Developers in the Federal Capital Territory, FCT, demanding for a probe by the Nigeria’s President and the National Assembly.
A statement released to newsmen on Monday by the Head , Public Affairs, Kenneth Chigelu tagged RE: DEVELOPERS PETITION TINUBU, NASS OVER FHA BOSS’ ALLEGED LAND GRABBING, described the allegation of administrative high handedness, land grabbing and extortion as spurious, quixotic and most ridiculous combined with reckless and irresponsible journalism portrayed by some conventional and online medium.
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He particularly accused the this day newspaper, Leadership and online medium, daily Nigeria of promoting fake news laced with a contraption of faceless set of criminals, land grabbers, discovered in the web of the recent digitalization, playing down of balance reportage.
Chigelu further stated that the activities of land grabbers and criminals are no longer new to the authority, as they are known land grabbers , professionals who benefited during the analogue era .
While maintaining that the digitalization exercise and process of the authority has come to stay , hence giving way to sane practices from the hitherto loss of property files , double allocations, and forgery , giving way to a secured documents and properties which heralded it’s exercise since 1st, May, 2024.
The statement further states …
“RE: DEVELOPERS PETITION TINUBU, NASS OVER FHA BOSS’ ALLEGED LAND GRABBING.”
“The attention of the management of Federal Housing Authority has been drawn to online publications in The Daily Nigerian, Leadership and This day (Lagos) newspapers of 29th and 30th April, 2026 respectively, purportedly by a coalition of Estate Developers in the Federal Capital Territory, calling on President Bola Ahmed Tinubu and the Leadership of the National Assembly of Nigeria to probe the Managing Director /Chief Executive Officer of Federal Housing Authority (FHA), Hon Oyetunde Ojo over alleged land grabbing, extortion and administrative high – handedness.”
“While Management views these allegations as spurious, quixotic and most ridiculous, we are also miffed at the reckless and irresponsible journalism exhibited by both Thisday, Leadership and Daily Nigerian in going ahead to publish a hogwash and contraptions by a faceless set of criminal land grabbers, who have been caught in the web of our recent digitalisation, without seeking to balance the story by hearing from us.”
“A read through the story hinges the grievances of the so-called Coalition of Estate Developers on alleged “deliberately slow administrative processes of land development approvals”.
For the benefit of the general public, the true picture is that all these so-called faceless developers, who are unknown to FHA are a clique of professional land grabbers, who were benefitting from their illegal deals when we operated analogue.”
“By 1st of May 2024, we launched FHA’S digitization and ended all analogue operations of the Authority’s property files. This new era not only ended the incessant loss of property files, double allocations and forgery but ensured the protection of property documents and increased the speed of service delivery.”
“The introduction of digitalization in the Authority ushered in a new order which has frustrated all forms of illegality with technology. The Authority also acquired a Max 350 drone with which all our lands have been precisely captured. These developments that foreclosed all windows of sharp practices obviously is the kernel of this agitation.”
“In the magnanimity of management, a Verification, Regularization and Ratification Exercise (VRR) was conducted. The exercise was a widow for all FHA genuine allottees whose records are not in order to come forward and have them rectified. Allottees that have illegally encroached or annexed our lands were given the opportunity to come forward and pay the difference and have their documentation ratified.”
“Observation from that exercise however revealed that a lot of people who had illegally grabbed the Authority’s land and had no proof of ownership, resorted to all forms of blackmail such as this. They are the criminal elements that wish the statusquo to remain.”
“Contrary to their claims, more than ever, the approval processes in FHA is now easier, faster and more seamless with the introduction of our One Stop Shop, where such approvals are granted under 2 weeks, provided all the criteria are met. Approvals not granted within the time line are those with incomplete or faulty documentation.”
“Federal Housing Authority have a very rich history of successful dealings with developers in our estates. We dare this so-called land grabbers that masquerade themselves as developers to mention their names and come up with genuine proof of allocation and verification in FHA.”
“The Authority has also put in place mechanism that puts to checks all incidents of under valuing our statutory fees. This may have also angered these criminal elements that had worked in collaboration with some bad eggs in our system to short change the agency.”
“We reiterate our resolve to keep growing the Authority towards the full actualization of its mandate of providing houses for Nigerians. We remain undeterred by the ambush and antics of these disgruntled land grabbers.”
*It is more laughable to think that these faceless entities, who claim to have many cases in courts in Abuja against Federal Housing Authority could not wait for the judgments of the cases they instituted against the Authority, and have chosen the path of blackmail and trial by the media,*
“Our resolve to salvage FHA remains Iron cast. For accurate and proper account of FHA’S property, we acquired a MAX 350 drone with which every single property of the FHA has been identified, all illegally encroached and annexed lands spotted.”
“In pursuit of transparency, the Authority conducted a nationwide Verification, Regularization and Re – validation exercise where window of opportunity was provided to all property owners to regularize their property documents with us.”
“We are determined in our journey of repositioning FHA. All these frivolities, antics and blackmail would never make us lose focus.
We therefore call on the general public to disregard this desperate professional land grabbers who parade themselves as Coalition of Estate developers but are not bold enough to tell Nigerians the names of their companies.
For all those that have stolen government’s land, there would be no hiding place.”
Signed:
Kenneth Chigelu
Head , Public Affairs
(DEMOCRACY NEWSLINE NEWSPAPER, MAY 25TH 2026)
