The Minister of the Federal Capital Territory, Nyesom Wike, has approved the revocation of 485 land documents in Abuja after they failed to satisfy official verification requirements.
The affected titles were invalidated following a detailed audit carried out by the Department of Land Administration in partnership with the Abuja Geographic Information Systems (AGIS). Authorities said many of the submissions did not meet authenticity standards, with several confirmed to be forged.
In a public notice released on Monday and labelled Batch I, the Federal Capital Territory Administration (FCTA) announced that the defective applications had been expunged from the regularisation database. The notice was directed at individuals and organisations that had presented Area Council land documents for validation.
“This is to inform the general public, particularly applicants who submitted Area Council land documents for regularisation, that the Minister of the Federal Capital Territory has approved the nullification or cancellation of applications that failed the necessary official checks for genuineness and have been confirmed to be fake,” the notice read.
The revoked documents cut across multiple Area Councils and layouts. In Bwari Area Council, affected locations include Ushafa Village Expansion Scheme, Ushafa Extension and Dawaki Extension 1.
Within the Abuja Municipal Area Council, impacted districts comprise Kurudu-Jikwoyi Relocation, Kurudu Commercial, Karu Village Extension, Nyanya Phase IV Extension, Jikwoyi Residential, Sabon Lugbe and Lugbe I Extension.
Kuchiyako One layout in Kuje Area Council was also listed among the affected areas.
Among those named in the cancellations are the Redeemed Christian Church of God and the Ministry of Justice Staff Multi-purpose Cooperative Society, among others.
By law, ownership of land in the FCT rests with the Federal Government, and all Certificates of Occupancy and related titles must be processed through the FCT Minister’s office and formalised by AGIS.
The move is part of ongoing reforms by the FCTA aimed at sanitising land administration in the territory. The reforms are designed to tackle issues such as forged documentation, multiple allocations and irregular grants allegedly issued by some Area Councils.
The cancellations form part of a wider regularisation drive that has been in progress for several months.
The reform push gained urgency last year when the FCTA revealed that only 8,287 out of 261,914 Area Council land documents submitted between 2006 and 2023 had been screened.
That figure represents just 3.2 per cent of total submissions, leaving 253,627 documents yet to be processed.
Officials of the Federal Capital Development Authority acknowledged the slow pace of verification, noting that 96.8 per cent of the submissions remain pending clearance.
