News Editor
By Ibrahim Nasiru
It is a profound and embarrassing tragedy to watch political commentators auditioning for relevance by abandoning basic arithmetic and statutory law on national television.
On Sunday morning, Saheed Ajadi—a former gubernatorial hopeful, appeared on a morning breakfast show to declare with a straight face that Atiku Abubakar “sold the whole of GRA Ikeja for ₦1 million” during his time as vice president.
To look into a live camera and peddle such a staggering falsehood is not just sloppy political theater; it is a complete surrender of common intellectual decency.
To dismantle this absurdity, we must first cure Mr. Ajadi of his fundamental ignorance regarding Nigerian land administration. Under the provisions of the Land Use Act of 1978, all urban land within the territory of a state is vested strictly in the state governor, held in trust for the people of that state.
GRA Ikeja is, and has always been, a statutory asset of the Lagos State Government.
Atiku Abubakar served as the Vice President of Nigeria and the Chairman of the National Council on Privatisation (NCP). The NCP’s legal mandate was confined exclusively to federally owned commercial enterprises—such as moribund manufacturing outfits, telecommunications frameworks, and unbundled energy assets.
Atiku never possessed the statutory power, legal jurisdiction, or executive authority to sign away a single residential plot in Ikeja. If Ajadi wishes to audit who managed, allocated, or reallocated prime Lagos real estate over the last twenty-five years, he must direct his inquiries to the internal records of the state’s ruling political machine.
Second, the numbers cited by Ajadi betray a total detachment from economic reality. The insinuation that an entire high-value metropolitan district could change hands for a paltry ₦1 million under an international privatization framework demonstrates that he views public policy through the lens of a village market rumour.
Assets privatized under the Bureau of Public Enterprises (BPE) underwent rigorous, multi-layered evaluations, competitive international bidding, and legislative oversight. They were not sold off in back alleys like scrap metal.
Why, then, do we hear these laughable fairy tales today? The answer is as transparent as glass.
When a political alignment presides over an economy gasping for breath—where petrol climbs toward ₦1,500 per litre, food inflation starves the working class, and the national currency remains battered—its apologists cannot defend their scorecard. They are forced to travel decades back in time to manufacture ridiculous historical fictions. They hope that by screaming about 2003 Lagos land, Nigerians will forget the price of a bag of rice in 2026.
Public commentary is a sacred duty, not an open mic for economic illiteracy. Saheed Ajadi and his fellow travelers need to learn the basic distinction between federal commercial assets and state-controlled real estate before stepping onto a public stage.
Nigerians are no longer amused by manufactured distractions. The ruling class must step forward, defend their decade of governance failures, and leave historical fabrication to those who have lost the capacity for honest debate.
Ibrahim Nasiru
Is A Public Affairs Analyst
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