Nyesom Wike has waived the payment of certificate of occupancy fees for the Nigerian Law School campus in Bwari, Abuja, and ordered that the document be processed and completed within one week.
The FCT minister gave the directive on Tuesday during a meeting with the school’s management in Abuja, saying it was “quite unfortunate” that the institution had operated at the site without a formal certificate of occupancy. Olugbemisola Odusote, the director-general of the Nigerian Law School, appealed for the document, and Wike told the FCT director of lands to immediately waive all processing fees for the campus.
Wike linked the move to a broader effort by his administration to regularise undocumented government assets across the capital. He said the law school case was part of that wider problem, and that the administration was also working on similar reforms in other FCT institutions, including the high court.
The waiver came alongside a fresh infrastructure push for the campus. Wike said the FCT administration had prioritised staff housing, with 10 units already completed and due for commissioning during President Bola Tinubu’s third anniversary events. He said another 10 units would be built using existing designs to cut costs, while work was already under way on new male and female hostels and approval had been granted for a new auditorium.
He also raised concern over delays in contractor mobilisation and said the staff housing project “must be treated as an emergency to ensure quick delivery.” Wike said the government was willing to do what it could to support the school, adding that anything possible to help students would be done. He directed the law school to work with the FCTA general counsel to explore digitising its administrative systems.
The steps fit into a broader package approved in September 2025, when Tinubu directed Wike to begin construction of two 300-capacity hostels for the Nigerian Law School in Abuja and the Body of Benchers Secretariat Road. Tuesday’s meeting pushed the project another step forward, and it also answered a basic question that had lingered over the Bwari campus: the certificate of occupancy, long missing, is now to be waived, processed and delivered immediately.
