Festival Town was intended to evoke modern age, state of the art and there was promise of state-sponsored economic development fuelled by oil revenues. A lot of money and resources was invested into the development and building of Festac Town, which included state of the art electrical generators, police and fire stations, access to public transportation, supermarkets, banks, health centres, public restrooms, and postal services etc.
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At the conclusion of this festival,the federal Government of Nigeria then allocated the accommodation, housing units and landed properties out. This was done by organising a ballot process which then chose eventual winners. This ballot was conducted under the supervision of Mr S. P. O. Fortune Ebie, first General Manager of the Federal Housing Authority, FHA, and administrator of Festac from 1976 to 1983.
This is the very interesting part. The forms that were sold for the ballot was in categories of N2, N3, N5, and N10. At the end, houses were allocated to winners,on owner-occupier basis, according to the categories as well as people’s level of income at the time.
Till now, claim is being made to this housing estate by the Federal, State and Local Government. This makes present residents to be issued charges ranging from valuation fees, Local Government levies to tenement rates.
All these were done under the Military leadership of Gen. Olusegun Obasanjo.
– @NigeriaStorie
Do we still KNOW anything about Federal Housing scheme in this generation? They build and give to their cronies… Obasanjo really was a performer and Visionary not this non-challant Current man resident in London.