Land Dispute: Turai Yar'Adua Floors Patience Jonathan

AN Abuja High Court on Thursday declared as null and void the revocation of a plot of land allocated to Turai Yar’Adua by the Federal Capital Territory.

The FCT had revoked the Abuja land allocation in favour of Mrs Patience Jonathan, the current president’s wife.

The court therefore revoked the notice of revocation issued to Turai by the FCT Administration on the plot with the judge, Peter Affen, ruling that taking the land from Turai, wife of the late President Umaru Yar’Adua and reallocating same to Mrs. Jonathan served no public interest.

Affen held that “the revocation issued by the Minister of Federal Capital Territory, Sen. Bala Mohammed, was invalid, null and void’’ and that the plaintiff’s (Turai’s) right of occupancy over the 1.84 hectares of land remained valid and subsisting.

“There is no regular and proper overriding public interest to warrant the purported revocation,’ the judge ruled, adding that it was the dispute between the plaintiff and Mrs. Jonathan that led to the purported revocation.