Re: Maitama extension, not Jonathan please
On March 28, 2012 ·
THE attention of the FCT Administration has been drawn to the editorial of This Day Newspaper of Wednesday, March 21, 2012, entitled: “Maitama Extension, Not Jonathan Please.” From the beginning to the end, the editorial was full of venom, hatred and ill-will.
While we acknowledge the right of every Nigerian to exercise their fundamental freedom of speech, including and especially the media, we however think that the use of language, especially by the media, ought to be dignified, civil and decent. The editorial was cleverly concocted, but failed to hide the agenda of its sponsors. ThisDay went overboard in its subjectivity to call for the redeployment of the Minister.
As an editorial, we expected the write-up to conform to the time-tested quality of an official opinion piece of a national newspaper that ought to be fair, objective and balanced. Rather than toe this line, the editorial in one fell swoop, tried to demean the achievements of the Minister of the Federal Capital Territory, Senator Bala Mohammed.
For the benefit of those who might not be aware, the FCT was conceived as a purpose-built city made up of 74 districts. Since inception only 11 districts have been developed.
The Abuja Masterplan was meant to guide the growth and development of the FCT. While we admit that there were instances of distortions by some previous administrations, the current administration of Senator Bala Mohammed with the support of President Goodluck Jonathan is strictly adhering to the sanctity of the masterplan.
The Minister’s adherence to the masterplan could be seen in his reforms in land administration, resuscitation of the Urban and Regional Planning Tribunal to ensure strict adherence to the masterplan and building codes in the FCT, solving problems of thousands of double allocations, dealing with problems of land speculators, preferring alternative dispute resolution to ensure genuine land cases were resolved out of court, establishment of a land use and allocation committee comprising professionals in consonance with laid down rules.
In line with the transformation agenda of the Federal Government and FCT road map for sustainable infrastructure development, the plan of the FCT Administration is to open 10 new districts by 2015. The Minister has already kick-started this with five districts within an unprecedented short period of his stewardship.
Since the inception of the FCT, the territory has never been this inundated with the present level of population growth, inadequate budgetary allocations and slow pace of infrastructure development. The aggregate infrastructure of the FCT since 1976 has not been more than 25 percent.
This is against the background of the fact that of all allocated plots, a significant percent remains undeveloped, owing to lack of infrastructure provision.
Any administrator who is besieged by these challenges would obviously need clear ideas, vision, ingenuity and political will to confront them as the Minister has demonstrated. Such qualities as exhibited by Senator Bala Mohammed do not belong to “a man bereft of ideas” as claimed by ThisDay editorial.
Rather than buckle under the myriad of these impediments Senator Bala Mohammed has deployed his ingenuity, sagacity and patriotism by embarking on a revolutionary approach to sustainable infrastructure development in the FCT.
The Minister through uncommon innovation and foresight has worked out a well structured Public Private Partnership, PPP, arrangement for sustainable and comprehensive development of the FCT. An example of this is the Katampe District development which is spread across more than 750 hectares of land and costs over N61 billion. The total number of 2,583 will consist of 1,788 high, 600 medium and 195 low density plots that will be developed, including the provision of other primary infrastructure like road, water and telephony, etc. Other districts that are being developed under the PPP model are Mabushi, Durumi, Kado and Gwarinpa 1.
More revolutionary, however, is Senator Bala Mohammed’s creativity in the use of land as an asset to develop Nigeria’s capital city.
The land swap model he has adopted is an innovative approach through which a percentage is agreed upon to a developer for real property development under a special contract provided by Section 8 of the Land Use Act of the FCT. In exchange, the developer will provide primary infrastructure in the agreed district without any financial, technical or demand risk on the part of the FCTA.
As a result of his articulated and painstaking drive to develop FCT, Senator Mohammed has been able to attract Direct Foreign Investment, DFI, to fund projects, including the Abuja Down Town Development, amounting to $2.6 billion; the World Trade Centre costing over $1 billion; the Katampe District Infrastructure Development and a host of others too numerous to mention.
All these investments total $4.5 billion which is equivalent to about N720 billion. While these developmental projects are going on across the FCT, millions of lives are being touched through provision of thousands of jobs and business opportunities per districts. These noble achievements in less than two years cannot be the product of “a confused state of mind” as alleged by ThisDay newspapers.
Ms. JAMILA TANGAZAis SSA Media Management Service to the FCT Minister.
