Former cabinet members during the tenure of Nasir el-Rufai, the ex-governor of Kaduna, have denied allegations that his administration seized lands belonging to legacy schools.
On April 22, Uba Sani, governor of Kaduna, revoked the sale of all institutional houses and land allocations within legacy schools in the state.
The affected institutions include Queen Amina College, Kaduna; Alhuda-Huda College, Zaria; and Government Commercial College, Zaria.
The state government had said the decision to revoke the sale of the institutional houses and land allocations was for the “overriding public interest and for the common good”.
El-Rufai was the governor of Kaduna from 2015 to 2023.
In a statement shared with Premium Times, the ex-Kaduna commissioners said the schools’ land titles were allocated to individuals by previous administrations before el-Rufai.
The former commissioners said el-Rufai initiated an arrangement to ensure recovery of the school lands when he assumed office in 2015.
“In 2015, under the leadership of Malam Nasir El-Rufai, the Kaduna State Government commenced a programme to restore the lands encroached upon and re-establish and preserve the boundaries of the affected schools,” the statement reads.
“We explained that our administration considered the recovery of school lands as imperative in better positioning the schools to properly discharge their primary mandate.
“Part of the actions taken included the removal of the illegal residential structures that had been erected within the premises of Alhudahuda College, Zaria.
“The recovery exercise was also implemented in Rimi College, Kaduna, where over three hectares of school land had been excised and distributed to individuals by previous governments for residential purposes.
“In some cases, the plots had been fully developed by the time we took office. Rimi College had also lost its students’ hostels, which had been converted to offices for some state government and federal agencies.
“However, our administration discovered that the allottees of Rimi College plots had valid titles, unlike the illegal squatters at Alhudahuda College. The private individuals who were assigned plots were served notices of revocation.
“In addition, the properties of those individuals who had valid titles and development approvals were valued for the purpose of compensation. Appropriate relocation notices were also sent to the state and federal agencies occupying the premises of Rimi College.
“Therefore, at its meeting of 16th November 2015, the Kaduna State Executive Council approved the payment of N378,357,752.00 as compensation for the first 19 properties within Rimi College whose valuation processes have been concluded.
“The allottees were also given application forms for allocation of alternative plots in the Millennium City layout. The current governor was a member of the State Executive Council when these decisions were debated, agreed upon, and implemented, as with every decision of our administration.
“Furthermore, in the interest of transparency, our administration published the names of the individuals that were allocated plots of land within Rimi College by previous administrations.
“The official government statement noted that some of the 38 beneficiaries of the allocations took no steps to develop their plots because they had reservations about building on school property.
“Can the current state government transparently publish the names of the persons to whom it had allocated these Rimi College properties for which our administration had paid so much in compensation and the names of the persons to whom those persons further resold the properties?
“The El-Rufai administration that we proudly served consistently applied this policy of recovering school lands to take back lands set aside for several primary schools across the state that had been converted to build corner shops and other shanties.
“Encroached land belonging to higher institutions like the Nigerian College of Aviation Technology, Zaria, was recovered while squatters with wrongly acquired titles to land were compensated with alternatives.” (The Cable)
