Acting President Yemi Osinbajo has approved the issuance of 615 pending land titles to the applicants. He gave the Minister of Power, Works and Housing, Babatunde Fashola approval to sign the land titles. The Minister briefed State House correspondents after a closed door meeting with the Acting President at the Presidential Villa Abuja on Tuesday night. The approval, he said, is to enable land transactions, mortgages, assignments and debentures across the country. According to him, the letters were already being issued to the applicants. The Ministry, he said, received the delegation of authority on July 27, and was awaiting another delegation of authority to issue the Certificates of Occupancy (C of O) for the approved titles. He said “Just to update the members of the public about the delegation of authority to issue consent for land transactions. “It has accumulated for a while but we received the delegation, I believe, on 27th of July. “On the first week of August my office approved all of the 615 pending applications for land transactions, mortgages, assignments, debentures and all of those things,” he said . He added “So, letters are being issued now to all the applicants and those who haven’t received theirs should just tally a while. “In a matter of a few days to fortnight from now we would have cleared that backlog then we go and deal with the pending applications for Certificates of Occupancy. “Again, we are expecting delegation of authority for that one.’’ he stated Fashola said that the applications had piled up which should not have happened adding that it was important to tell the public about the approvals. According to him, the implication is that it is a further boost to the economy. He said that those who wanted to borrow or lend money or had sold or planning to sell their land could complete those transactions and money could move round. The Minister explained that titles could change hands as all businesses related to land whether the person was running a school, bank, a newspaper agency or catering outfit. “Everything revolves around it so it helps to drive us closer to our journey out of recession and implement the Economic Recovery and Growth Plan,’’ he said.
