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Former Defence Minister and MP for Bimbilla, Dominic Nitiwul has accused the NDC of exhibiting hypocrisy and dishonesty in their crusade against ownership of state lands.
Speaking on Asempa FM's Ekosiisen programme on Monday, Nitiwul gave a history of the genesis of allocating state lands to private developers and politically exposed persons, saying the National Democratic Congress started the practice under the Rawlings administration, and other NDC regimes have continued the practice.
"The idea of disposing off of state lands started under Jerry Rawlings. This was not happening in Ghana but it started in 1996 or 1998 by the NDC under Jerry Rawlings," Dominic Nitiwul revealed.
Nitiwul explained that because of the manner in which the colonial administration built small structures on vast lands across cantonments, the Rawlings government commenced what was termed "in-filling," which allowed the release of the unused plots around Cantonments, Kanda and the Airport areas to developers.
The Bimbilla MP said this practice, which the NDC started and released state lands to developers and individuals, continued when President Kufuor took over from Rawlings, but the NDC saw nothing wrong with what Rawlings did and rather launched a public campaign against Kufuor.
"The Kufuor government came and continued but if you remember, when Kufuor was leaving, the NDC made so much noise of grabbing of state lands," he recalled.
Nitiwul further admitted that all governments in the 4th Republic have continued with the policy even beyond cantonments, and accused the NDC, specifically the Mahama regime, between 2012 and 2017, of grabbing and sharing state lands among themselves.
"I can tell you that if you look at the history of Ghana from Dr. Kwame Nkrumah, it is the NDC that has released and grabbed more state lands than any government," Nitiwul said, threatening to expose state lands owned by top NDC members.
"Well, if the NDC say owning state land is stealing, I say let us go to Borteyman (off the Accra-Tema Motorway) and see who owns land at Borteyman," he dared.
"Borteyman is state land and that's where Kufuor built the affordable housing. The land that was left was shared during Mahama's time. They shared the land and some of their MPs got some. MPs from both sides, particularly those who were then in government under the Mahama regime, got some of the lands. Big people and some of them are still in parliament," the Bimbilla MP stressed.
"I know the place and I can show you everybody's land. I was offered two plots as Deputy Leader but I didn't take."
"Again if you go to Tamale, the place called Residence, the land there all is state land. The land was acquired for the residency but today go and find out the people who are there. They are all politically exposed persons. Even the house that the President sometimes sleeps in in Tamale is on state land."
"So they should stop this hypocrisy of creating a picture that a particular group is stealing state lands."

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