The Minister of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Nyesom Wike, has signed a total of 26,272 Certificates of Occupancy (C-of-Os) since May 2023, according to a statement released by his Senior Special Assistant on Public Communications. The official said the surge in document issuance marks a significant increase over the previous administration and aims to streamline land ownership in the territory.
According to the report, the current administration has produced and signed 26,272 Certificates of Occupancy. This figure contrasts sharply with the 8,697 C-of-Os allegedly produced and signed between 2010 and 2023. The aide explained that 5,500 Certificates were produced and signed during the five-and-a-half-year administration of former President Goodluck Jonathan, while 3,197 were produced and signed during the eight-year administration of former President Muhammadu Buhari.
The minister’s office stated that many allottees have been waiting more than 10 years for their documents. Wike’s administration has since introduced an automated notification system to inform allottees when their documents are ready for collection.
This rapid pace of issuance is accompanied by the granting of 2,521 Consents to Assign and 177 Consents to Mortgage in the last three years. The previous administrations reportedly granted 753 Consents to Assign and 180 Consents to Mortgage under President Jonathan, along with 684 Consents to Assign and 164 Consents to Mortgage under President Buhari.
Consent to Assign is a legal document required when selling a property or transferring an interest in a property. Consent to Mortgage is an official approval required before a property can be used as collateral for a loan.
In 2025, the FCT Administration announced a reduction in the fee for the issuance of C-of-Os for plots of land in Abuja from N5 million to N3.5 million. The downward review followed objections from stakeholders and key players in the real estate sector regarding the initially announced fee. The minister clarified that the payment of N3.5 million would not apply to re-certification but only to the issuance of new certificates.
The process has been streamlined to allow land allottees to receive their documents within two weeks of completing payment. The statement noted that landowners were previously discouraged from completing payments under previous administrations due to inefficiencies.
While the current administration pushes for a digital link between National Identification Numbers (NINs) and C-of-Os, officials maintain that the era when three or more persons were allocated the same plot of land with fake C-of-Os has ended.
Given the sheer volume of titles being issued, the risk of administrative errors or clerical mismatches in the database could rise if manual verification isn’t kept pace with this automated speed. The success of this record-breaking effort will likely depend on the government’s ability to maintain data integrity as the number of transactions grows.
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