By Joshua Tosin Ogunsakin 
Minister of the Federal Capital Territory, Chief Nyesom Wike, has approved the nullification of 485 land documents across several districts in Abuja following a verification exercise that exposed widespread forgery.
The cancellation, announced in a public notice yesterday, affects applications submitted by individuals seeking to regularise land documents obtained from the area councils.
According to the Federal Capital Territory Administration (FCTA), the documents failed mandatory authenticity checks conducted by the Department of Land Administration in collaboration with the Abuja Geographic Information Systems (AGIS).
“This is to inform the general public, particularly applicants who submitted Area Council land documents for regularisation, that the minister of the FCT has approved the nullification or cancellation of applications that failed the necessary official checks for genuineness and have been confirmed to be fake,” the notice reads.
The affected documents, listed under Batch I of the exercise, span multiple Area Councils, including Bwari, Abuja Municipal, and Kuje.
In Bwari, impacted locations include Ushafa Village Expansion Scheme, Ushafa Extension, and Dawaki Extension 1. Within the Abuja Municipal Area Council, districts such as Kurudu-Jikwoyi Relocation, Kurudu Commercial, Karu Village Extension, Nyanya Phase IV Extension, Jikwoyi Residential, Sabon Lugbe, and Lugbe I Extension were affected. The Kuchiyako One layout in Kuje Area Council was also listed.
Under Nigerian law, all land in the FCT is vested in the federal government, with valid titles requiring processing through the FCT Minister’s office and formalisation by AGIS.
Officials say the cancellations are part of ongoing reforms aimed at addressing deep-rooted challenges, including forged documents, double allocations, and irregular grants allegedly issued by some area councils.
The scale of the problem came to light last year when the FCTA disclosed that out of 261,914 Area Council land documents submitted between 2006 and 2023, only 8,287, representing just 3.2 per cent, had been screened, leaving over 250,000 documents pending verification.
Monday’s notice confirmed that the invalid applications have now been removed from the regularisation database, signalling a tougher stance by the Wike-led administration in sanitising land administration in the nation’s capital.