CITY NEWS Court fixes Nov 25 for Dei Dei land owners, FCTA suit
The hearing of the suit between Dei-Dei land owners and the Federal Capital Territory Administration (FCTA) has been fixed for November 25, 2015.
The case will come up in the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) High Court sitting at Gudu District under Justice A.A.I. Banjoko.
Counsel to the Dei-Dei land owners, Barr. Nduka Nwagbo, while briefing the plaintiffs said the suit earlier scheduled to commence on Tuesday, October 6 2015, could not hold due to Justice Banjoko’s engagement at the election tribunal.
Barr. Nwagbo said the new date was agreed, as the election tribunal would have been concluded.
Over 1000 land owners of Zaudan and Filindabo layouts at Dei-Dei district of the FCT had dragged the former FCT Minister, Senator Bala Mohammed, to court in 2013 over what they described as unjust attempts by the FCT Administration to claim the land which was allocated to them between 1998 and 1999.
Elder Friday Ugoala, chairman of Zaudan Pazeri Property Owners Association, who is also one of the plaintiffs, said that they approached the court after several efforts to resolve the issue with the FCT Administration failed.
“We are praying the court to order that our allocation should remain and to declare other allocations made on top of ours null and void.”
He expressed confidence in the judiciary, adding that the court would give them justice.
“What happened was that after plots were allocated to us by the FCDA in 1998 and 1999, all the processing fees they demanded from us were paid. Even during the el-Rufai administration, when they called for recertification of our allocations, we fulfilled the processes again and completed the financial implications involved all over and AGIS acknowledged that our documents were in order,” he explained.
Another land owner Mrs. Maria Okafor, a 67-year said she has been spending money on rent when she could have built her own house.