Federal Capital Territory Minister Nyesom Wike, SAN, has signed a total of 26,272 Certificates of Occupancy since May 2023, as part of efforts to ease the process of doing business in the FCT.
This was disclosed in a statement issued on Sunday by Lere Olayinka, Senior Special Assistant on Public Communications and Social Media to the FCT Minister.
The achievement was linked to President Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s Renewed Hope Agenda.
Olayinka said the figure represents a sharp increase compared to the 8,697 C-of-Os allegedly produced and signed between 2010 and 2023.
He claimed that “during the five-and-a-half-year administration of President Goodluck Jonathan, a total of 5,500 Certificates of Occupancy were produced and signed, while 3,197 were produced and signed during the eight-year administration of President Muhammadu Buhari.”
According to him, many of the beneficiaries of the 26,272 certificates issued under Wike’s watch had received their land allocations more than ten years earlier but had not previously obtained their documents.
Olayinka stated that the current FCT Administration has streamlined the process, enabling land allottees to receive their documents within two weeks of completing payment.
“The moment necessary payments are made, land allottees can now get their C-of-O within two weeks,” Olayinka stated.
“Also, an automated notification system has been introduced to ensure that land allottees are informed when their documents are ready for collection,” he added.
He alleged that landowners had previously been discouraged from completing payments under earlier administrations because of inefficiencies in the system.
The statement also disclosed that a total of 2,521 Consents to Assign were granted, along with 177 Consents to Mortgage, over the last three years of the Tinubu administration under the FCT Administration led by Wike.
“Apart from producing and signing 26,272 Certificates of Occupancy, a total of 2,521 Consents to Assign were granted, while 177 Consents to Mortgage were granted in the last three years of President Tinubu’s administration by the FCT Administration under Nyesom Wike,” the statement partly reads.
“This is against 753 Consents to Assign and 180 Consents to Mortgage granted by the administration of President Jonathan, as well as 684 Consents to Assign and 164 Consents to Mortgage granted during the eight-year administration of President Buhari,” the statement further reads.
Olayinka explained that a Consent to Assign is a legal document required when selling a property or transferring an interest in a property, while a Consent to Mortgage is an official approval required before a property can be used as collateral for a loan.
In 2025, Wike announced a reduction in the fee for the issuance of C-of-Os for plots of land in Abuja, bringing it down from N5 million to N3.5 million.
The downward review appeared to be a response to objections raised by stakeholders and key players in the real estate sector against the initially announced N5 million fee.
Wike had earlier indicated that a downward review of the C-of-O fee was being considered, noting that the amount was a flat rate applied to all sizes of land regardless of location within the FCT.
He also said that the N3.5 million payment would not apply to re-certification but only to the issuance of new certificates.
The FCT continues to attract growing interest for land acquisition and development, driven largely by its extensive road networks within the city centre and in parts of the outskirts.
It will be recalled that Wike had earlier disclosed that the FCT Administration pegged the cost of issuing a Certificate of Occupancy at N5 million.
He said payment could be made within four months of land allocation, after which the C-of-O would be handed over to the applicant.
He added that he would seek President Tinubu’s approval to link applicants’ National Identification Numbers to their C-of-Os before issuance.
The minister also said the era when three or more persons were allocated the same plot of land using fake C-of-Os was now over.
