I’ll Allocate Land Only In Serviced Areas -Wike

By: Wisdom Acka

FCT Minister, Nyesom Wike, has pledged that his Administration would ensure the provision of infrastructure before allocating land in the Federal Capital Territory, Abuja.

The Minister, who said this on Thursday when he played host to the Chief Judge of the Federal High Court, Justice John Tsoho, added that it did not make any economic sense to allocate land to people in areas that are not serviced.

Wike was responding to Justice Tsoho, who had requested the Minister to consider the Judiciary in the allocation of land in Abuja.

According to him, President Bola Tinubu had already mandated him to provide lands to key officials in the three arms of the government; saying he was developing a template that would see the allocation done in phases.

He said: “Like you rightly said, I believe that the three arms of government must work together even though independently and I believe that no arm of government should be treated lesser than the other.”

“Without the Judiciary, our democracy cannot survive. Nigerians are talking about the Judiciary today because of the role you play and so whatever is required to strengthen the Judiciary is not over-demanding,” he emphasized.

“Before now, the President had given me the go ahead to allocate lands to the Legislature, the Executive and the Judiciary. What remains now is how it should be done because the number is much. What we have decided to do is to do this in phases. All cannot be done at the same time,” Wike stressed.

“Some allocations were done in the past but unfortunately, some of the places are inaccessible. I think it is baseless allocating land where people have no access, that is infrastructure. It does not make any sense. So, we will allocate lands to you in places that are accessible”, he remarked.

Justice Tsoho commended Wike for his continued support to the Judicial arm of government; saying as governor, the welfare of Judicial officers in Rivers became the envy of their counterparts in other states.

He said Wike’s great antecedents in Rivers must have earned him this current position.

“I commend Your Excellency’s bias for the Judiciary and you have always seen it as your primary constituency. The welfare of the Rivers state Judiciary was second to none and you raised the bar so high that it became the envy of Judicial officers in other states,” he said.

“It is with that confidence that we bring the anguish of the Federal High Court to you. The peculiarities of our job due to transfers takes us to several places. Consequently, we are denied various forms of policies for enhancing welfare of Judges since we are not part of the Judiciary of those states and failure to cater for our interests at the Federal level makes us stateless,” Justice Tsoho reiterated.

“I kindly urge your excellency to use your good offices in allocating landed property to Federal High Court judges. We appreciate our large number and recommend that this be done in batches, scattered across the FCT”, he requested.

Justice Tsoho also notified the Minister of the golden jubilee celebration of the Federal High Court, which is slated for December.