Chioma Umeha
President of Pharmaceutical Society of Nigeria
(PSN) on Friday performed the ground-breaking ceremony for the construction of
the society’s multi-million naira eight-floor edifice tagged, “PSN Towers.”
The ground breaking ceremony came after a long
struggle by the PSN to retrieve the land located in the eyebrow area of
Victoria Island in Lagos.
The land which is estimated at 1,430 square metres
was allocated to the society by the first Civilian Governor of Lagos, Alhaji
Lateef Jakande at a time he was giving lands to professional bodies which
applied for same.
It was learnt that the development of the land was
contracted to two different contractors on Build, Operate and Transfer (BOT)
basis but the contractors allegedly defaulted.
It eventually became a matter of litigation as the
case was taken to the Land Tribunal in Lagos.
But when the President of PSN assumed the mantle
of leadership, he explored every avenue to ensure the recovery of the land and
through the intervention of prominent Nigerians especially the Oba of Lagos,
Riliwanu Akiolu, the PSN was able to retrieve the choice land.
Performing the ground-breaking exercise signalling
the commencement of work, Yakasai who is rounding up his tenure as the
President of PSN recalled the tortuous battle to get back the land, saying the
society almost lost the property.
He specifically thanked the Oba of Lagos for his
intervention.
He said: “This is the PSN Towers, the commercial
arm of the Pharmaceutical Society of Nigeria (PSN). We have been trying to see
that we build our own headquarters where most of the big organisations are
situated, that is former AfriBank Street which is now called Church Gate.
“And by the grace of God after retrieving our land
which was in court for many years, I thank God and I must appreciate and extend
my gratitude to the Oba of Lagos for intervening to get this land back to us.”
“Today we are doing the ground breaking of
building of eight floors, a big edifice that we will tag the PSN towers. By the
grace of God we want to complete it within a record time.”
Yakasai who disclosed that the project would be
self-financed said the building would be put to commercial use by renting it to
banks and corporate bodies.
He did not however rule out the possibility of
giving it out to investors on a win-win situation. “But if we have a big
investor that is not selfish, that’s not greedy, that thinks about the win-win
situation, definitely the door is open there,” he added. Arch. Akose Enebeli
who explained the architectural proposition of the building said it is an eight
– storey building comprising six floors and two level car parks with each floor
having enough spaces for banking halls and other commercial purposes.
Dr. John Nwaiwu, Chairman of the Property
Committee said, “This story is a long term story. It is been on and off. By the
time we acquired it, some people came and had an arrangement with us. They
couldn’t keep their own part of the bargain and so on and so forth. In fact we
almost lost it.”
“Except for the hard work and greater commitment
of the President, Ahmed Yakasai. He almost touched the sky to make sure we got
the land back and kudos to him.”
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