President Bola Tinubu has approved the immediate dissolution of the Presidential Implementation Committee on the Alienation of Federal Government Properties.
The president transferred all its functions to the Attorney-General of the Federation and Minister of Justice, Lateef Fagbemi while the Committee’s erstwhile Secretary, Dutsin-Ma, has been directed to immediately cease acting on behalf of the committee and the Federal Government on all related matters.
In a statement signed on Thursday announcing the directive, the Special Adviser to Tinubu on Information and Strategy, Bayo Onanuga, states that the dissolution took effect from November 5, 2025 was taken following a careful review that found the PIC had extended its activities beyond its original mandate, resulting in multiple litigations across the country.
It discloses that the development no longer justified the committee’s continued existence.
“After careful consideration, the government has noted that the activities of the PIC had extended beyond its original mandate, resulting in multiple litigations across the country, and the continued existence of the committee is no longer justified,” the statement read.
The PIC was a 25-year-old body established in 2000 under former President Olusegun Obasanjo to oversee the privatisation, sale and lease of Federal Government landed assets under the administration’s monetisation policy.
The sweeping reform programme at the time sought to convert government-owned housing, vehicles and other assets into cash and end the practice of providing perquisites in kind to public servants.
Its membership comprised the then Minister of Housing as chairperson, alongside representatives from the Ministries of Transportation, Justice, Health and Agriculture, as well as the Nigeria Police Force, with Professor P. T. Ahire, then a Deputy Director in the Office of the SGF, serving as pioneer Secretary.
On March 22, 2001, the Federal Executive Council approved the establishment of a Panel of Inquiry to produce a White Paper to guide the implementation of the committee’s recommendations. The panel worked for 21 months before submitting its report.
The monetisation policy it served emerged as one of the most consequential administrative reforms of the Obasanjo era.
However, its implementation generated decades of controversy, with thousands of disputes arising over the valuation and sale of government properties, allegations of undervaluation, claims of irregular sales to political insiders and a trail of court cases.