The Management of Federal Housing Authority has commenced the rehabilitation of roads in Festac Town Lagos, starting from the 1st Avenue.
Inspecting the progress of work on Thursday 22nd August 2024, the Managing Director and Chief Executive, Hon Oyetunde Ojo said rehabilitation of the roads will be in phases, and expressed the willingness of the Authority to address the decay in the town.
According to Hon Ojo, “restoring the glory of Festac Town has gone beyond mere rhetorics, but will now be matched with visible actions”. He noted that Festac Town is more than just an estate in Nigeria but a national monument. He therefore stated that FHA would do everything it takes to restore the lost glory of the town.
Hon. Ojo however called on the residents to work with the Authority to achieve this. He called on allottees to cooperate with FHA by paying all their statutory fees, noting that the Authority needs to generate funds from its properties to operate since it is no longer in government appropriation.
The Federal Housing Authority Managing Director had earlier in a meeting with the Festac Town Residents Association (FTRA) solicited their cooperation with FHA to serve them better.
The Managing Director informed the FTRA members that FHA has no funding/budget/allocation from the Federal Government and that if the Authority is expected to live up to is obligations and functions, it needs money to work. This money he said can only be raised from the properties it has.
The FHA boss used the opportunity to explain the reasons and Management’s intentions behind the on going verification exercise in the Authority. This he said is to capture the most recent and accurate data of all property owners in the Authority’s data base since FHA has digitalised its operations.
He reiterated the management’s rejection of the old analogue system with the high risk of property information being left in paper/file format. This he noted is susceptible to fire, theft, misplacement and other negative factors.
Preventing this and for easy retrieval he said is the main essence of the verification and digitalisation exercise by the Authority.
The Managing Director ruled the fact that about 4000 residents in Festac are yet to offset the mortgages on their properties that had 30 years window of payment.
Hon encourages allottees to avail themselves of the opportunity of this nation wide verification exercise to update their record’s with FHA, noting that of the estimated 23,000 FHA approved properties in Festac, about 11,000 have done the verification, representing about 50%.l The Managing Director however, posited that FHA would only recognize thr verified properties after the exercise.
On the ongoing rehabilitation work going on, Hon Ojo said that the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd gates will be looked into starting with the demolition of the old 1st gate and erection of a new morden structure, clearing of all illegal structures on that axis, fixing of solar street lights on the stretch of 1st Avenue, from the 1st gate to the junction of 11 road, clearing of the median and keeping it clean, and palliative repairs on the inward and outward roads of 1st gate.
The Managing Director also hinted on the repairs of the 3.2km stretch of 2nd Avenue, which will cost about 7 billion Naira. This he said FHA will try to influence through Federal Government, but that palliative jobs will be done to still keep it in use.
The FHA Chief Executive warned that he will be visiting 6th Avenue to carry out demolition exercise on properties that have been marked by the Authority, noting that some of the marked buildings are showing visible signs of integrity failure and are at the verge of collapsing.
He posited that if the owners decide to break them down themselves, they will still have their lands to their names, but if FHA is to demolish the houses, the owners will loose the land title.
