Oyo State is providing incentives for genuine investors, tax payers — Land Commissioner, Rahman
In this Exclusive interview with FAIZAT ADEBOYE AND FLORENCE AYOOLA, the Commissioner for Lands, Housing and Urban Development, Oyo state, Barrister Abiodun Abdul-Rahman Abdul-Raheem commented on the incentives the Government is putting in place to make the state’s environment conducive for Developers to invest. According to him, efforts are in place to remove all sorts of bottlenecks and glitches such as the practice of land grabbers with zero-tolerance. Excerpts:
What are the incen tives for land allocation in Oyo State?
Oyo state is an emerging market for all sort of developments now. Saying emerging does not however mean it has not been existing; it is emerging because the level we are now shows that we are ready to answer to our name ‘the pace setter’ state in the Country. We want to take benefit of the economic potentials we have in Oyo state and Land is one of the main factors to be precise. We know that in Lagos, because of the situations there; the high cost of living and so on, people will prefer to stay in Ibadan once we are able to settle the issue of the express-road from Ibadan to Lagos and all the bottlenecks are removed. Then, you are aware that we now have Dry Port coming to Ibadan, as well as light train coming to Ibadan from Lagos which will give people the opportunity of being able to afford staying at Ibadan and working in Lagos. So, they will come and start their life again in Ibadan. Now, if you notice, from Wednesday till Sunday, you will see traffic jam in Ibadan because people move down here to have their rest and so on and so forth. It is on this note that I will like to make it known to you that, we on our own part have decided to have some incentives for the people that will be coming to the state. One of the incentives is that we are creating a conducive environment for private developers to come on board and then we have a partnering attitude that is well commendable so that the price for the land will not be too high. We will make sure we remove omo-onile (land grabbers) attitude from it, when we acquire the land so they can give us affordable and accessible housing arrangements. Not only that, we have human approach to taxation as well. So, we want to remove all sort of bottlenecks along that line.
And then, we are creating GRAs even on the site of the government. Right now, we have two we are working on. Recently, we just handed over one of the GRAs to a company that is ready to collaborate with us to provide infrastructures here.
Also, within the system here, we have the Housing Home Board that allows civil servants to access loan needed in order to buy land. So, we are doing our best for them. Also, we are encouraging people who have genuine intention to come. So by and large, we are creating a lot of incentives for whoever wants to have a genuine business in the state.
As the commissioner for Lands, Housing and Urban Development, what is your opinion on Land Use Act?
Land Use Act is a federal enactment because land is now in the exclusive legislative list and it has been moved since 1978 or thereabout. Then, we are not used to all the peculiarities; the knitting gritty of the process. So far now, I think it is a win-win for us because it now dovetails to a clear position that, the governor of the state is now holding the land in trust for the people of the state. This is better and gives room for development to come up in such a way that nobody will be able to act as stumbling block when a governor proposes a genuine business approach. I mean the regime should come; I think it’s a win-win for us.
Is the Land Use Act still relevant in the present regime?
It is still very relevant, we don’t have any problem with it as far as I am concern.
How is the state government settling the issues of Land Grabbers?
Let me say this and this is like the umpteenth time I will be saying this that although we have our own little domestic problems here, we now have Land Grabbers that are extremely professionals. They moved to Oyo state from different states. They are just here to create an impression that we just have to do things in their own way but we have zero-tolerance for such act and we will not allow it happen.
How is your ministry adding value to Internally Generated Revenue (IGR) through allocation of lands?
In this state, we are one of the dependable sources of getting IGR for the state, through a lot of activities we do. We produce Certificate of Ownership (C.of.O). Attached to our office here is the surveyor’s general office and all the surfing and survey exercise is being performed by them and any transaction on Lands will have to be done here. All the statutory fees and bills payable with regards to transactions on Land will have to be paid here. So, we are generating a lot of IGR for the state but I must say that, we have not gotten to the zenith of it due to some circumstances such as COVID-19 that we are just coming out from. We have some other issues here and there but God willing, we are working round the clock to surmount them so that we can do more on the IGR.
