EDITORIAL: Reining in Abuja elite property tax evaders

The Minister of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Abuja, Nyesom Wike, has decried the elite aversion to payment of property-related taxes, which he confessed has been his biggest challenge since assuming office some two years now. At issue are accruable revenues from the issuance of Certificates of Occupancy to land owners and annual ground rents.

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These breaches, spanning up to 43 years are scandalous and the height of civic irresponsibility, in plain language. Such abuse of the law only happens where law and order are taken for granted, or not enforced. But determined to clean up this mess, the minister adopted the naming-and-shaming strategy, with the publication of a list of the culprits, numbering 1,376, in December last year. Some had made partial payments before Mr Wike came to the saddle, while 722 defaulters had not paid a kobo till date.

After notices were served to the C-of-O debtors, they were given two weeks of grace to discharge their obligations, after which those still in default would have their land ownership revoked. In January, the minister made good his threat, which affected 568 defaulters. It is difficult to imagine that the lands in question are in Maitama, Asokoro, Central Business District, Cadastral Zone A10, Wuse I and Wuse II, and Guzape, all of which are prime locations that only the super-rich enjoy ownership of.

Two serving ministers in the President Bola Tinubu cabinet are involved, as well as a topmost bureaucrat. Others are a governor, senators, House of Representatives members – including one of its principal officers, and corporate giants. The Land Use Act, in Section 28, vests in the minister of the FCT the power to revoke any C-of-O, for non-compliance with the terms of plot allocation in the territory. It costs N5 million to secure the document.

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Ground rents evaders owe over N30 billion. There are 4,794 of them, which include federal agencies, banks, party chieftains, and a prominent political party. Mr Wike had begun to seal the affected buildings, in preliminary proceedings towards their seizure, when the president intervened and gave the owners 14 days within which to discharge their debt obligations, or risk the law taking its course. This is fair enough. Those wrongly labelled would have exploited this period to prove their innocence. The grace period expires today, 16 June. Defaulters are to pay either N2 million or N3 million fines, subject to the property location, and the amount owed.

But some critics have imbued the minister’s action with partisan hues, given that the Peoples Democratic Party is one of those embroiled in the situation, and there is a history of no love lost between the party and Minister Wike, who ordinarily is one of its senior officials. This is cheap blackmail and a clear way to detract from the substance of the matter. Nasir El-Rufai, as the FCT minister, it could be recalled, did the same thing in 2007, in his bid to restore the city’s distorted master plan. In the process, part of the residence of Ahmadu Ali – who was then the national chairman of the PDP, to which Mr El-Rufai belonged – was destroyed, among hundreds belonging to other personalities. Mr Ali’s house was sitting on a sewage lane.

These demonstrations of courage, firmness and unwavering fidelity to the law, should be the touchstone in the discharge of official responsibilities. To do otherwise, creates a society of two castes: those subjected to the rigours of the law, and others who are above the law. This is a recipe for chaos or anarchy in society, which is not acceptable. The law is no respecter of person(s) in decent societies. This is a moral canon that should be guarded jealously here also.

The FCT, everyone attests, is an oasis in Nigeria, in terms of its design, beauty and maintenance, like Brasilia, Paris, Washington and other major world capitals. Therefore, it needs heavy funding to keep functioning optimally. Unfortunately, this has not been the case. For instance, water supply in Abuja is limited, such that taps are dry in a major estate like Gwarimpa and the satellite towns. Additional road networks are required. And some public primary schools are not conducive for learning.

Unlike the 36 states, its access to the federation account is limited to just one per cent of allocation of whatever the Federal Government receives from the Federal Accounts Allocation Committee (FAAC) monthly distribution to the three tiers of government.

The Minister of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Nyesom Wike

This fiscal challenge, therefore, explains Mr Wike’s aggressive internally generated revenue drive. Within legal frameworks, these debtors must be made to conform or be sanctioned accordingly. As the minister noted, “Most elite own houses abroad and know the implications of not paying taxes. But when it comes to your (their) own country, you (they) don’t want to pay simply because nobody wants to obey the law and everybody thinks that there will be no sanctions.” It is a reign of impunity that must be stopped.

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Beyond this surreal discovery of 43 years of indebtedness, Mr Wike’s action interrogates the systemic dysfunction of government’s bureaucracy that allows trillions of naira of public revenues to be lost, unrecovered or stolen. Yet, there are officials whose remit is to ensure this does not happen, including the National Assembly with its oversight. Therefore, the brief of an FCT minister should transcend the routine – of land allocation and the signing Cs-of-O.

From what we know, the ministries, departments and agencies (MDAs) of government need the Wikes of this world in each of them. A 2023 report of Nigeria Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (NEITI) stated that oil companies owed the government $9.85 billion in taxes, royalties and profit shares from the joint ventures in 2021. An official tally put the unrecovered debts of the MDAs at ₦5.2 trillion from 5,000 debtors in 99 MDAs, as of April 2024. Only a paltry sum of ₦57 billion had been recouped within the period under review.

Notorious for land racketeering, the rut in the FCT land administration should be uprooted. It beggars belief that land allottees in Asokoro, Maitama and Central Business District would allow their properties to be revoked. It may well be that these are assets got through back channels. Mr Wike, dig deeper into the mess!