Under the change agenda, the challenging current economic circumstance and heightened demand for social infrastructure across the country, especially the Federal Capital Territory ( FCT) given its strategic position, it has, more than ever, become imperative for the FCT administration to take steps to quickly and decisively tackle their consequences.
There is therefore the need to confront dogmatic thinking and entrench innovative ideas to extend the successes chalked in the past years to development priorities of the present times. Indeed, the FCTA must as a matter of urgency, reprioritize its priorities to ensure effective and efficient service delivery in the FCT. Mr Mohammed Musa Bello, Minister of FCT, does appear to understand the enormity of the tasks which he must undertake, and the benefits of the dynamic and pragmatic leadership which he must provide in meeting these challenges.
For all Nigerians, and especially for all those saddled with official responsibilities like the honourable minister, these are no ordinary times as they are increasingly expected to function under a long-forgotten culture of accountability and responsibility. For the minister, the outcomes expected from his activities in the FCT are such as are amendable to the principles of business unusual of the President Muhammadu Buhari government. The PMB government has shown a clear tendency towards welfarism and by implication, every exercise of government is to be analysed in terms of its value to the well-being of the economy and its citizenry.
Thus, Mohammed Musa Bello is expected to exert himself in seeing to the realization of the dream of making the FCT liveable by scaling up critical interventions in terms of closing infrastructure gap and environmental sustainability. In this regard, ensuring the sanctity of the Abuja master plan and perhaps its review, in addition, to concerted effort to increase finance from many sources to insure the service delivery systems keep pace with the demands posed by a growing FCT population are essential. Over the years, willful encroachment into government designated areas by individuals and corporate bodies with impunity has been identified as being largely responsible for infrastructure and environmental degradation in the FCT.
It is therefore a laudable resolve for the minister to have emphasized that all such encroachments either in the past or in recent times will be redressed. In ensuring environmental standards, the minister underscored the pivotal role of the Abuja Environmental Protection Board in fostering adherence to the master plan, and in assuring environmental safety for a more progressive implementation of its mandate. He equally noted that the quality of existing services would require further improvement and decentralization so as to ensure that the benefits of development are spread evenly across the area councils and that way, the population pressure on the metropolis would be reduced. It is in furtherance of this vision that the minister decried the size of the proposed waste transfer station facility which would obviously need to be enlarged to cater for large sections of the city.
The ongoing aggressive rehabilitation of hitherto damaged roads such as the dilapidated road leading to the popular Utako motor park, rehabilitation of roads around the Shehu Shagari Way in Maitama and Ring Road1 (Nnamdi Azikiwe Expressway) and many more across the city is an indication of the minister’s resolve. Bello has demonstrated that the matter of the FCT development require more governance than politics and for him to nurture the city’s attractiveness as a business location is one that must be pursued with passion and professionalism. Thus, his course so far has been so focused. The emphasis on the need for well articulated strategies that are based on appropriate analysis of data, fair cost and benefit analyses and a clear monitoring and evaluation system in the provision of energy, transport, healthcare and water supply and sanitation as well as other critical infrastructure is a commendable initiative on the part of the minister in positioning the FCT for service delivery need of its residents. In all of these, while the minister’s honesty, integrity and commitment remain re-assuring, the collective support of FCT residents and other stakeholders is also a necessity. Musa writes from Abuja
