No land for you yet, FCT Minister tells NAF

The delegation of the Nigeria Air Force that visited the FCT Minister to solicit for land for their post service scheme may have left disappointed as the minister told them in clear terms that there was no space to be al­located them at the moment as the Administration was holisti­cally looking at land space for the armed forces in line with the Abu­ja Master Plan.

This position was made known by the FCT Minister when a del­egation of the Nigerian Air Force Properties Limited, led by its Man­aging Director/Chief Executive Officer, Air Commodore Musa Tanko visited him in his office in Abuja to request for land for their post service housing scheme.

The Minister stated that the Armed forces would be treated holistically and that when the Presi-dential Committee handling the armed forces issues submits its reports, it would be treated as a whole

“A committee was set up to look at the requirements of the Armed Forces holistically in terms of their needs for barracks, training fields, housing scheme, shooting ranges and all other facilities that normal­ly, the armed forces will require. The committee is working on that and by the time we are done, ad­ditional areas will be identified and then each of the sections of the armed forces will of course be adequately catered for,” he stated.

The Minister revealed that a committee set up by Federal Gov­ernment is currently working to make specific provisions for re­quirements such as training fields, barracks, shooting ranges as well as housing schemes for the Armed Forces in the FCT.

Malam Bello said that the FCT Administration has had to make adjustments in recent times to pro­tect the interests of the Nigerian Armed Forces in the Territory.

According to him, “Within the Abuja Master Plan, we have made ample provision for lands for all arms of the Armed Forces to cater for their needs and requirements”.

The Minister however, cau­tioned that all development ac­tivities in the FCT must have to be car-ried out in consonance with the Abuja Master Plan as well as Land Use provisions.

He therefore advised the Nigeri­an Armed Forces to always ensure that all their developmental activi­ties are carried out in strict compli­ance with the rules and regulations as stipulated by the Development Control Department of the FCTA.

Speaking earlier, the Managing Director /Chief Executive Officer of the Nigerian Air Force Prop­erties Limited, Air Commodore Musa Tanko said that the agency takes care of the landed properties of the Nigerian Air Force includ­ing land for post service housing development as well as farm lands.

Air Commodore Tanko sought for allocation of land for the con­struction of post service housing scheme in the Federal Capital Ter­ritory; in addition to farmland to enable the Force key into the Cen­tral Bank of Nigeria (CBN) anchor borrowers’ scheme. THE AUTHORITY