Kogi Land Bureau Issues Guidelines on Land Allocations in Lokoja Region
Kogi State Bureau of Land and Urban Development has issued stern warning to communities located within the sixteen-kilometer radius of the state capital against unauthorised land sales and allocations.
The Director-General of the Bureau, Alh. Samari Teina Abdulmalik, issued the warning today during a stakeholders’ meeting that held at the Glass House in Government House, Lokoja, on land administration.
Alh. Teina who explained that the meeting was organised to educate the locals on the importance of adhering to government regulations in land allocation processes, added that the effort is not an attempt to take away lands belonging to communities but to guide them on what the law stipulates.
According to him, it is the prerogative and exclusive reserve of the Bureau of Land and Urban Development to deal and allocate land within the designated 16 kilometers radius in the state’s capital, noting that the gathering would enlighten and help curb illegal acquisitions and potential conflicts.
The DG, Bureau of Land and Urban Development who forewarned that sanctions await defaulters that would go against the law of the Land Act Use of the Federal and State Governments, called ‘16 kilometers radius’, clarified that the government would not withhold the payment of compensations for affected land owners and those acquired from communities.
“We are not here to take anybody’s land, but I am assuring you that any land that the government takes from any community will be adequately compensated for. So we want the communities and other stakeholders to stop arbitrary allocation of land without government approval.”
“Whoever needs land should come to the Bureau so that we can have a proper plan and good layout that will pave the way for development, because it is in our plan to soon effect massive development in Lokoja, the state capital.”
Responding, the Olu of Oworo, Alh. Mohammed Adoga, applauded the government for its timely intervention in convening the stakeholders’ meeting and urged the Bureau to address lingering land disputes that have impeded community development.
Similarly, the Olu of Akpata-Oworo, Oba Fredrick Durojaye, who spoke, elucidated the need to preserve lands as their asset and called for government intervention to facilitate rural development through infrastructure projects.
