How land grabbers took Rimi College’s toilets, hostels

The extra-legal allocation of school lands and lands reserved for public purposes to private individuals and government officials came into vogue in Kaduna during the past governments but the new government has exhibited determination to put a stop to such trend and in fact, recovering those carve outs from those that encroached At the popular […]

The extra-legal allocation of school lands and lands reserved for public purposes to private individuals and government officials came into vogue in Kaduna during the past governments but the new government has exhibited determination to put a stop to such trend and in fact, recovering those carve outs from those that encroached
At the popular Rimi College located at Ungwar Rimi in Kaduna State, large portions of the school land have been taken over by private individuals who erect mansions for residential purpose while some of the school classrooms, hostels and workshops have been converted to residential homes. While many of the structures have been completed, some are ongoing. This act worries concerned citizens and ex-students of the school who according to them, has brought about bastardization of the school.
Rimi College is one of the oldest secondary schools in the North founded during the colonial period and it has vast land. The college was established in 1949 by the Christian missionaries as St. John’s College and handed over to Kaduna State government in 1972.
It was gathered that the school authorities were not consulted before government allocated the school’s land to individuals.
DailyTrust learnt that the college houses the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB) state office, State Universal Basic Education Board, Teacher’s Service Board, NECO and the Mathematical Centre.
Apart from the above, many mansions have also been erected on the premises of the school, the structures are scattered in the staff quarters of the college.
In the effort by the new government to recover the carve outs, the Kaduna State Urban Planning and Development Authority  (KASUPDA) has marked and numbered all non school structures on the school land, giving the property owners a three-week demolition notice.
Some of the notices placed on the structures read in part: “The board has observed that you are developing/have developed a piece of land without the necessary legal requirement of authentic evidence of ownership and planning permission. This is a contravention of 30 sub-section 2 of the Nigerian Urban and Regional Planning law.
“In the event, you have gotten the necessary planning permission due to overriding public interest, your permission is hereby revoked and your building earmarked for demolition. In view of the above, the board is giving you 21 days within which to vacate or remove the structure erected/occupied by you based on section 61 of the afore-mentioned law.”
During the visit to the school, our reporter could not find occupants of the marked structures except for few security guards in some of the buildings.
A security man found in one of the houses said his boss stopped work immediately he was served demolition notice by KASUPDA. According to him, some of the property owners acquired the land from the late Sir Patrick Ibrahim Yakowa while others got theirs during the administration of Governor Mukhtar Ramalan Yero.
“It is government versus government matter because one government gave out the lands and another government says it wants the lands back, so what can anybody do?” he asked rhetorically.
Another security man said the owner of the house got the land from the state government even though he could not ascertain under which government. He told our reporter that his boss has all the documents for the land.
A non-teaching staff of the college who pleaded anonymity blamed past governments for the encroachment, saying majority of them got approval and documents to do so from the state government.
Some of the old boys of the school on their own part blamed the encroachment on the conversion of the school from boarding into a day school.
A source very close to the school expressed sadness over the attitude of people especially the well-to-do who have decided to choke the town instead of moving out to expand the city.
According to the source, “If you go to GRAs, you will see old structures of government have been choked. The 200/200 metres of land has been segmented into three or four. Unfortunately, they are sold at exorbitant prices and people were enticed to buying them.
“So, the carve-outs went beyond government residential structures, they went into schools. For instance, the lands of schools including Rimi College, Sardauna Memorial College (SMC), Government College, Kaduna Teachers College have been bastardised.
“In Rimi College, there are classes, hostels, technical drawing/wood workshops, metal workshops and even toilets that existed in the yester years but now have been turned into residential buildings.
“At the same Rimi College, the past government gave out lands in between staff quarters and people went ahead to erect structures. If our past governments had the interest of education at heart, they wouldn’t have bastardised the core educational sector, which are schools that need to be developed from time to time,” he said. According to him, the old Rimi College starts from Tafawa Balewa Way down to Gobarau road and from Degel 1 to Degel 2 but now the school land has been segmented into Kaduna State Universal Education Board, Teachers Service Board, JAMB office, NECO building, Mathematical Centre as well as individual structures on the land.
“The church is part of the school because it was initially a mission school before it was taken over by government. The mosque within the school premises is also part of the school as the land was given to the students by the school and its building was financed by parents of students of the school in the early 80s,” the source explained.
On who gave the land out, he said the most unfortunate part of the story is that the lands were given out by an old boy of the college, Sir Patrick Ibrahim Yakowa. All this, according to him happened when the governor of the state, the speaker of the state house of assembly, the commissioner of lands, commissioner of economic planning were all old boys. “After the death of Governor Yakowa, we complained and we were made to understand that the Governor was boxed into a corner to give out those lands,” the source added.
At the demise of Yakowa, Governor Ramalan Yero came and continued from where his predecessor stopped by giving the remaining pieces of land, it was said.
The source said the property owners may not be referred to as encroachers because they have documents issued by state government. “They didn’t just encroach onto the land. But the steps by the new government to bring down those structures are the right thing to do but at the same time, we must sympathise with those that erected the structures because some of them are second or third parties. The initial people given the land sold them to second party and some cases, second party sold to third party but recovering those lands is just the right thing to do.
“You can’t just erect a structure on a school land and think you will get away with it and if you do get away with it in a certain government, if another government that knows what it is supposed to do pertaining welfare of citizens and development of education, you will not get away with it,” said the source.
On whether the affected persons should be compensated, he said they should not be compensated because they are illegal structures but that if the state government will look at it from a sympathetic note, it can allocate another land to them  but not pay for the illegal structures.
This encroachment has slowed down the development of the school. In the past, the school was a boarding school and as at the late 70s early 80s, the population of students was over 1,000 and majority of them reside in the school as boarders but today, there are no structures where just 100 students can reside if the school were to return to boarding school. The old boys during the late Yakowa’s regime raised money to renovate two hostels, built a laundry and renovated a toilet. Having done this, they pleaded with Yakowa to return the college to a boarding school and start with the two hostel while they expanded gradually but nothing was done.
Governor Nasir el-Rufai last week started recovering public land, starting with illegal structures on the famous Alhudahuda College in Zaria. Even though, some of the illegal buildings have been demolished, the state governor said that his mission was not demolition but recovering of the public lands.
An official of KASUPDA explained that the essence of the demolition exercise was to recover public lands having served the occupants three-week notice.