TDThe Federal Capital Territory (FCT) Lands Department is a department devoid of the simple service with respect as highlighted in SERVICOM
If anyone wants to understand why many Nigerians have lost faith in public institutions, they need look no further than the Department.
For many citizens, an encounter with the department is not simply an administrative process; it is an exercise in frustration, endurance, and, too often, humiliation. The experience has become so predictable that many people now regard poor service, unnecessary delays, and disrespectful treatment as normal. The fact that this has become accepted says as much about the institution as it does about the wider decline in public service standards.
One of the most striking features of the department is the attitude many members of the public encounter when seeking assistance. A citizen may enter an office, offer a greeting, and politely ask for information regarding a file, only to be met with indifference, irritation, or outright hostility. Basic courtesy—something that should be the minimum standard in any professional environment—often appears absent.
The problem is not that one or two employees are having a bad day. The concern is that the behavior appears widespread enough to suggest a deeper institutional problem. When the same complaints emerge repeatedly across multiple offices and over many years, it becomes difficult to dismiss them as isolated incidents.
Even more troubling are the delays. Files can remain in offices for months and, in some cases, years without clear explanations or visible progress. Citizens are left chasing updates, moving from desk to desk, and trying to obtain information that should be readily available. What ought to be a transparent administrative process often feels like an obstacle course.
This situation raises serious questions about the effectiveness of service delivery standards within the department. Whatever happened to the principles of SERVICOM—courtesy, efficiency, accountability, and responsiveness? If those principles are being implemented, many citizens would be forgiven for asking where the evidence can be found.
The consequences extend far beyond inconvenience. Delays in land administration affect investments, housing projects, business activities, and personal financial planning. Every unnecessary delay carries a cost. Every unanswered inquiry erodes public trust. Every act of disrespect deepens the growing divide between citizens and the institutions meant to serve them.
What makes the situation particularly frustrating is that many of these problems do not require massive budgets or complex reforms to address. They require professionalism. They require leadership. They require a culture in which public servants understand that citizens are not intruders in government offices but the very reason those offices exist.
Too often in Nigeria, discussions about national progress focus exclusively on presidents, ministers, governors, and politicians. Yet the quality of governance is also determined by the conduct of the public servant sitting behind a desk. A government can announce ambitious reforms, but those reforms mean little if the average citizen continues to encounter indifference, arrogance, and inefficiency at the point of service delivery.
The leadership of the FCT Administration should treat these concerns as a warning sign rather than routine complaints. An institution that consistently leaves citizens feeling ignored, disrespected, and powerless is not merely suffering from poor customer service; it is failing in one of its most basic responsibilities.
This message is directed to the Director of Lands, Chijioke Nwankwoeze, and to the Minister of the FCT, Nyesom Wike. The public deserves more than promises and slogans. It deserves a lands administration that operates with efficiency, transparency, professionalism, and respect.
Citizens should not have to beg for information about their own files. They should not have to tolerate rudeness as a condition for receiving service. And they should not have to accept dysfunction simply because it has existed for so long.
The true measure of a public institution is not the speeches made about it, but the experience of the citizens who walk through its doors. By that measure, the FCT Lands Department still has a great deal of work to do.
