Battle of the First Ladies Latest: "...disputed land was not allocated to Turai Yar'Adua" - Moddibo

Former Federal Capital Territory Minister, Dr. Aliyu Moddibo Umar, has cleared the air over the genesis of the controversy surrounding the plot of land allocated by the FCT Administration for building the continental secretariat of African First Ladies Peace Mission (AFLPM), saying he indeed allocated the plot to AFLPM in 2008.

According to Moddibo, who served as Minister of FCT between 2007 and 2008, it was his successor, Alhaji Adamu Aliero, who changed the concept of the land and re-allocated it to Women and Youth Empowerment Foundation (WAYEF) belonging to former First Lady, Hajiya Turai Yar’ Adua, two years later.

The former minister spoke in an interview with the Hausa Service of the Voice of America yesterday. The report was monitored in Abuja, according to a statement made available to The Guardian by the FCT Minister’s Special Assistant (SA) on Media and Public Affairs, Nosike Ogbuenyi.

According to Moddibo, there was no controversy about it as the land in question was allocated to ALPM and a Certificate of Occupancy (C of O) prepared for the Mission.

Moddibo said in the interview: “When I became Minister, I brought the idea for the building of the secretariat as a legacy the former First Lady would leave behind. I consulted the former President (late Umaru Musa Yar’Adua) and advised him on the project, and after the wife became the leader of the African First Ladies Mission. I told him that the NGO needed a secretariat to build an edifice just like the Women Centre built by late Maryam Babangida and the National Hospital built by Maryam Abacha.

“He (Yar’Adua) agreed and told me to look for a land. When I eventually found the land, I prepared a Certificate of Occupancy and the Structural Design of the proposed secretariat before I reported back to him. He appreciated the effort and directed me to meet her with the proposal. After a discussion, she accepted the idea and set up a committee which comprised the FCTA and Foreign Affairs officials as well as Maryam Abacha, late Murtala Muhammed’s wife (Ajoke) and Patience.”

The former FCT Minister said that the late President Yar’Adua warned him not to allocate any land to either his wife or children. He clarified that he allocated the land to an NGO (AFLPM) and not an individual.

Efforts to get the response of Moddibo’s successor, Aliero, to explain why he allegedly re-allocated the same land to Turai for her private NGO, WAYEF, were not successful.