Society Gists

The Lagos operations of the Federal Radio Corporation of Nigeria, FRCN is currently enmeshed in a major scandal following allegation of underhand dealings in the sales of some parcels of land at the sub-station of the corporation located at Adekunle Fajuyi, GRA, Ikeja, Lagos.
Sources at the corporation informed Sunday Sun that some topnotch officers at the Lagos operations of the corporation allegedly sold three acres of land from the large expanse of land at the Shogunle station which houses Bond FM for N250 million, an amount said to be a far-cry from the real value of land in the area.
While investigations by our correspondent showed that a plot of land in the GRA currently sold for over N200 million, those involved in the alleged sales of the corporation’s land were said to have frittered away three acres of land for N250million as against N3.6 billion, the least amount the land was expected to have yielded.
The deal was said to have been struck before the appointment of the current Director General of the corporation, Mansur Liman in May this year, but the matter was said to have been squealed to him upon his assumption of office.
The new DG, one of our sources said, ordered investigation into how the deal was struck and was said to have been miffed by the outcome of the investigation as a number of top ranking officers of the corporation were allegedly indicted.
But another source told Sunday Sun that the land, which is said to be 10.4 hectares, was allegedly bought by some directors in the corporation.
Although it was gathered that money paid by the supposed buyers of the land had been refunded and they were asked to hands off the property, a source gave indications that a full scale investigation into the shoddy deal might commence soon.
Several top management officers who were contacted on the issue declined comments, preferring to hide under the cloak of civil service rules. Some others feigned ignorance of the deal and asked Sunday Sun to see the Director of Lagos Operations, who they claimed was the competent person that could speak on the subject.
The Director of Lagos Operations of the corporation, Mr. Adeyinka Amosu, in an interview with Sunday Sun, however, denied the allegation.
According to him, “there is no inch of the land belonging to Radio Nigeria in Lagos that is sold. The land in question is our training school and transmission base.
“What you see happening in that place is that there was an agreement to give part of it to developers and that was done before the coming of the new Director General, Dr. Mansur Liman. The agreement had been on since 2010 or 2012 or so. I think the agreement at some point was inconclusive.
“As at the time the land was given, broadcasting required such massive expanse of land. But in the new age we have what is called self support mast, stand alone etc. So, the thinking is for Radio Nigeria to collapse the mast and cables that you see there so that we could free some of the land for use by the training wing of Radio Nigeria, the National Broadcasting Academy which is being transformed into a full-fledged degree awarding institution.
“But knowing full well that Radio Nigeria does not have the resources, so the thinking was to use part of what it has to get what it wants. That is the essence of the partnership which I said was inconclusive. It was not even selling, but a partnership,” Amosu said.

-The Sun