Abuja landowners are swarming the Abuja Geographic Information Systems (AGIS) office in a last-minute rush as the Federal Capital Territory Administration (FCTA) issues a 14-day ultimatum.
The Department of Land Administration issued the ultimatum in a public notice on June 2, 2025, warning that if defaulting landowners did not pay their debts in line with the conditions of their Certificates of Occupancy (C-of-Os) and Rights of Occupancy, they risked having their land titles revoked and their properties repossessed.
Prominent federal organisations like the Nigerian Navy, the Department of Petroleum Resources (DPR), the Nigeria Governors’ Forum, the Federal High Court, and the Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS) are among the high-profile defaulters; if urgent payments are not made, these organisations could lose properties worth billions of naira.
The list also includes the capital’s Lagos, Kwara, Jigawa, Benue, Ondo, Adamawa, Osun, and Enugu state governments and their liaison offices. The notice further highlighted the scope of the debt recovery effort by naming no fewer than 34 foreign embassies.
Some of the debts go back up to 43 years, according to the FCTA report, which contained the names and title numbers of 3,383 defaulters. Compared to the 4,794 titles that were already cancelled on March 13, 2025, and the more than 9,000 names that the government had previously released in September and October 2024, this represents a substantial decrease.
There was tension when Sunday PUNCH visited the AGIS headquarters in Abuja on Friday. Despite presenting press credentials, the reporter was unable to talk with the impacted individuals due to security officers controlling the door.
Speaking under the condition of anonymity, one AGIS official acknowledged that the organisation has been overburdened recently. “Traffic has increased significantly. People are currently in a panic. Decades have passed since the accumulation of some of these loans. “Until their names were revealed, they didn’t take it seriously,” the official stated.
The FCTA has maintained that the debt recovery exercise is a component of a larger initiative to improve internally produced revenue and clean up the capital’s land administration system.
The Department of Land Administration claims that the deadline is final and that no more extensions will be given. This serves as a reminder to defaulters to carry out their responsibilities under the FCTA as outlined in the covenanted terms and circumstances. The notification dated June 2 stated that noncompliance would lead to revocation.
Legal experts caution that noncompliance could result in the affected property owners losing all legal rights to their land, as the government has the power to redistribute such holdings.
Given the high-profile nature of the defaulters and the diplomatic sensitivities surrounding the embassies on the list, everyone is watching the FCTA’s next step as the deadline draws near. The FCTA’s message is clear for the time being: pay or lose your land.
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