No Embassy Land is Revoked in Abuja -FCDA

By: Wisdom Acka

The Federal Capital Development Authority (FCDA) has said that it did not reclaim any plot of land belonging to any embassy in the Federal Capital Territory, Abuja.

Executive Secretary, FCDA, Engr. Shehu Hadi Ahmad gave this explanation following a recent publication by a National Daily claiming that the Authority had reclaimed some plots of land belonging to Embassy in Abuja.

This refutal was contained in a statement made available to Abuja Digest by the Head of Public Relations, FCDA, Richard Nduul.

According to the statement, at no time had the FCDA announced that it reclaimed plots belonging to Ghana, Malaysia and Thailand embassies or any other embassy in Abuja.

The statement reads in part: “The attention of the Federal Capital Development Authority (FCDA) has been drawn to a publication attributing a statement on reclamation of embassy plots to the Executive Secretary, Engr. Shehu Hadi Ahmad, which is untrue”.

“What happened was that during the question and answer session at the end of the Executive Secretary’s presentation, a question was asked about the challenges with some diplomatic plots and whether the issue has been resolved,” it added.

The statement explained that part of the reasons for developing Guzape layout was to handle some of these Diplomatic plots that had to be consumed by infrastructural development.

It then quoted the FCDA Executive Secretary as saying, “Actually, some Diplomatic plots were affected by the RR1/Goodluck Jonathan way interchange around the National Stadium. You know when you have an issue with an embassy; it is like you are having an issue with the government of that nation and everything that must be avoided must be done to see that it is avoided. It is not just about getting a plot and saying go there”.

“When you are inside an Embassy, you are completely outside Nigeria. We have gotten replacement plots and the affected embassies have indicated readiness to accept,” the statement further added.

While acknowledging that there are challenges with some of the embassy plots, the statement emphatically stated that, “it can, therefore, be seen from the above response that while it is true that the Executive Secretary acknowledged that we actually do have challenges with some embassy plots at the Ring Road 1 by the Inner Southern Expressway (ISEX)/Goodluck Jonathan way around the stadium, and that efforts are being made to address the affected cases, he never listed the name of any embassy.

“This is the true and correct representation of what happened during the Executive Secretary’s Media Briefing and it is hoped that the submission of this facts will also put the matter to rest”.