President Bola Tinubu has approved the immediate dissolution of the Presidential Implementation Committee on the Alienation of Federal Government Properties, a 25-year-old body established during the administration of former President Olusegun Obasanjo.
The President also directed that all the committee’s responsibilities be transferred to the Attorney-General of the Federation and Minister of Justice, Lateef Fagbemi.
The directive was announced in a statement issued on Thursday by the Special Adviser to the President on Information and Strategy, Bayo Onanuga.
According to the statement, the dissolution took effect from November 5, 2025, while the committee’s former Secretary, B. S. Dutsin-Ma, was instructed to immediately stop acting on behalf of both the committee and the Federal Government on all related matters.
The Presidency said the decision followed a review which found that the committee had gone beyond its original mandate, leading to multiple court cases across the country.
It said 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 established in 2000 under Obasanjo to oversee the privatisation, sale and lease of Federal Government landed assets under the administration’s monetisation policy.
The reform programme was introduced to convert government-owned houses, vehicles and other public assets into cash while ending the practice of providing public servants with benefits in kind.
The committee was chaired by the then Minister of Housing and included representatives from the Ministries of Transportation, Justice, Health and Agriculture, as well as the Nigeria Police Force. Professor P. T. Ahire, then a Deputy Director in the Office of the Secretary to the Government of the Federation, served as its pioneer secretary.
On March 22, 2001, the Federal Executive Council approved the establishment of a Panel of Inquiry to prepare a White Paper that would guide the implementation of the committee’s recommendations.
The panel spent 21 months carrying out its assignment before submitting its report.
The monetisation policy it supported later became one of the most significant administrative reforms of the Obasanjo administration.
However, the policy’s implementation remained controversial for years, with thousands of disputes over the valuation and sale of government properties, allegations of undervaluation, claims that assets were sold irregularly to political allies, and numerous court cases.