Director General of the Bureau of Land in Kwara State, Barrister Bolaji Edun, on Wednesday, told the State Judicial Panel on Assets Recovery how several plots of land allocated in the 1980s for the construction of courtrooms in Ilorin were arbitrarily sold out by the administrations of former Governors Bukola Saraki and Abdulfatah Ahmed without following the due process.
According to Edun, the lands in Tanke area of Ilorin had been allocated to the judiciary as part of the planning for the state but were gradually auctioned out from 2009 without the government first revoking the allocation of the same in line with the law.
Edun was answering questions regarding a petition filed to the panel by the state judiciary which seeks restoration of the land amid shortage of courtrooms in the state capital. The judiciary also complained of unlawful encroachment on the leftover of the land by at least two occupants: Candidate Hotel and the Nigeria Society of Engineering Secretariat.
Edun said the earliest state allocations on the land were made in 2009 and the issuance of C of O started in 2013 while the Bureau of Lands could not find the C of O of Candidate Hotel in its record.
“The extension and encroachment seen at the Hotel were not part of the C of O granted. In fact there is no record of its title in our files,” he said.
Edun clarified that the entire land from Rhema Chapel around Tanke Tipper Garage to Prince Gambari building in Tanke Iledu was allocated to the state judiciary in 1980.