The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has condemned the Federal Capital Territory Development Authority (FCTDA) for sealing off its national secretariat at Wadata Plaza on Monday.

Briefing the press after a caucus meeting on Monday, the Acting Chairman of the PDP, Umar Damagum, called the action of the FCTA irresponsible and vowed that the party will challenge it.

Damagum said that the caucus meeting is adjourned to 10 am on Tuesday (tomorrow).

Asked if the PDP National Executive Council (NEC) will still hold, the Acting PDP Chair was silent on the question.

Officials of the FCTA, on Monday, sealed off Wadata Plaza, the building housing the National Secretariat of the PDP in Abuja, over unpaid ground and tenancy rent.

Lere Olayinka, the Senior Special Assistant on Public Communications and Social Media to the FCT Minister, Nyesom Wike, said the plaza owes N7,603,504.31 as 28 years’ ground rent.

“On Wadata Plaza being used as PDP National Secretariat, N7,603,504.31 is being owed as 28 years’ Ground Rent,” he wrote on his Facebook page on Monday afternoon after the sealing off.

The Wadata Plaza building was not the only structure sealed off by the FCT administration on Monday.

Others included complexes housing a commercial bank, the Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS), and the Agency for the Prohibition of Trafficking in Persons (NAPTIP) at the Wuse Zone 5 in the nation’s capital.

According to Lere, the FIRS has not paid ground rent for 25 years.

Monday’s sealing off came a few months after the FCT administration lamented that over N6 billion had been lost as revenue due to non-compliance by some property owners in the payment of their ground rents for over 10 years.