By Joyce Remi-Babayeju
In less than one month after the FCT Minister, Nyesom Wike, stopped work at the RiverPark Estate in Lugbe, developers have since returned to the site.
When the FCTA Development Control, enforcement team visited the estate on Wednesday, they saw that developers were still erecting structures.
According to FCTA Director Development Control , Tpl Mukhtar Galadima, who led the enforcement team, the action is an illegal construction, a defiance of a ministerial directive, which attracts legal action against the developers.
Galadima said that the operation was aimed at ensuring total compliance with the FCT Minister’s directive that all ongoing developments within the estate be stopped.”
He disclosed that the team had carried out similar operations at the location in the past, after a tip off that developers had returned and resumed erecting structures.
“We are here to ensure total compliance with the ministerial directive that no development should be allowed in the River Park Estate.”
“We got a report that there is an ongoing development. That’s why we rushed to ensure that the development is stopped and the structure being put should be removed,” Galadima said.
He explained that the FCTA would no longer rely solely on demolition to enforce compliance, adding that henceforth the administration would start taking legal action against the erring developer.
“We’re liaising with our Legal Secretariat to see that this action may be taken up legally so that we don’t come back again. Nobody is above government. ”
“Maybe there is a perception that he can do as he pleases, but you see, nobody is above government. We have done the kinetic aspect; now we are taking it up legally to ensure that we don’t come back again,” Galadima stated.
He noted that the developer was fully aware of the ministerial directive, which followed extensive investigations and recommendations by an ad-hoc committee earlier set up by the FCT Minister, Nyesom Wike.
Recall that the FCT minister on August 8, 2025, had inaugurated committees to review controversies surrounding the River Park Estate. The committee, in its report, faulted the developers for breaching the Development Lease Agreement (DLA) and recommended that all undeveloped plots in the estate be reverted to the FCTA.
The committee had explained that the revocation became necessary due to the expiration and violation of the DLA, as well as the need to reassert administrative control over the affected plots in line with Clause 9.2 of the agreement.
