Muhammad Musa Bello is the Minister of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT); he briefed State House Correspondents recently on the achievements of the FCT administration in the last seven years amongst other issues. ABDULLAHI M. GULLOMA was there.
Why did you end the inauguration of Council chairmen a day before the event?
With regards to the Area Councils’ elections that took place and the court cases. I want to emphatically say that, for those of you who know me, I follow the rule of law. And this government is a government of rule of law. So, you can be assured that the FCTA had nothing to do with the court case at all. It doesn’t make sense for us to superintend over an electoral process that was adjudged very transparent and we were able to be commended because during that Area Councils’ election we lost some, and we won some.
Tell me about any area council or local government in Nigeria where the sitting government lost an election. Even if there are, we can count them on our fingers. That shows you that the FCT administration, and by extension, the government of President Muhammadu Buhari, is law-abiding. We allowed for a free and fair election and that’s exactly what happened. And like any election, some feel aggrieved. So, they went to court, and the court gave a judgement and as a law-abiding government, we honoured the court judgement and that’s a natural thing to do.
I think it is unthinkable for me as a sitting minister in the federal government of Nigeria in 2022 to flout a court judgement; it doesn’t make sense. So, now what we are doing is we are awaiting the outcome of the cases in the court. And at the end of the day, as a law-abiding administration, whatever the court says we move on because the whole idea is elections are overdone. What we are to concentrate on now is governance.
Security is a big issue in Nigeria and incomplete buildings are places where some of these crimes are being planned. What’s your administration doing to address this?
Yes, uncompleted buildings have been a challenge and with the population explosion and how rent is so expensive here in Abuja. I’m sure all of us know that it is a reality, that any open space that is ungoverned, available, people will go into it. We’ve continued to work towards several ways to solve that. First and foremost, now we have identified the uncompleted buildings starting from the epicentre, centre of the city in cycles that are moving out. We’ve identified the owners of these buildings and we’ve communicated in the open media, open-source, as well as directly with the owners of these buildings that they have to start removing them.
And invariably, what usually happens is a person puts up a building and he gives the security man to take care of it. He doesn’t probably live in Abuja, or he doesn’t go there and before you know it, the security men also sublet and something like that. We know how it goes, but it’s something we are working on because we know that, on many occasions, we’ve been able to identify criminals in some of these houses. But we do it with a human face in such a way that you don’t create too much societal upheaval, but it’s ongoing.
What are you doing about internally generated revenue to ensure that your administration is also able to continue to maintain its projects?
About IGR, well, you see when I came for this briefing, I was given borders; that it was just on infrastructure, but actually, we’ve done tremendously well in IGR. We are now rated as the second sub-national after Lagos in terms of IGR and all this happened because of the goodwill of the people in all the departments. But we have a young man now that handles our FCT Internal Revenue Service, Mr. Abdullah, he’s been doing a very good job. And what we intend to do, probably before the end of our tenure, is to be number one. And we intend to do so because now we’ve almost concluded the re-titling process that we intend to roll out all the properties in the estates.
We intend to give them title so that if you live in an estate and even if you live in a building that has flats, you will now be able to have a title document that gives you flexibility when you want to either use the facility for any mortgage loan or if you want to sell, and then it frees the ability to make non-transaction because a lot of economic activities are tied to that. And then if you make titling much easier, it becomes helpful. And I might as well say that under the ease of doing business of this government, FCT has keyed in very, very closely and we are rated among the best in many of the parameters used in judging sub-national. FCT has come up very high and I think we’ve done a lot in trying to ease the land, and tender process assistance.
How much do you generate?
When it comes to exact figures, I probably will not want to commit myself, but I can tell you our IGR now is over N200 billion.
Would you say the Federal Capital Development Authority is doing its job well because even the Federal Housing Authority estates are affected by the latest demolitions?
What I was saying is that it’s unfair for the general public to rate ministers based on the destruction and demolition of property in the FCT. So, that is the main context. I was bashed because I was not demolishing. And I told you that I and my team felt that let’s empower the institutions that are supposed to do all this to make sure that they prevent illegal buildings from even coming up so that you don’t need to demolish them. But having said that, of course, we demolish and we will continue to demolish.
As we are seated here, a team is demolishing somewhere already. And these things will continue because no matter how you try, some still would not want to follow regulations. I think our teams have been out there, trying to explain to people. And certain demolitions are just almost inevitable. For instance, you have to demolish illegal buildings along waterways because when a flash flood comes, the enormous power of running water during a flash flood is something that most people don’t, and can raise a motorway with all the weight of the motorway. So, what we’ve done is we need to save lives and that’s why we continue to demolish and we have to construct a road made for hundreds of thousands. And somebody decides, without seeking appropriate approval, to go and build in the middle of the road. Are you going to make a detour in respect of one person to the detriment of hundreds of thousands? So this is the issue, it’s a fact of life, it is a two-way thing.
We try to encourage people to follow the rules and regulations because they are all there. And then, of course, if you go on the wrong side of the law, we move on because as public officials we are empowered and we have a duty, a moral obligation to do what is right for the largest number of people and that’s what has always guided me as a public officer. You don’t look at individuals, you don’t look at class, and you don’t look at the group. No, you do what is going to be beneficial to the largest number of people and that’s what we’ve been doing.
Not too long ago, a governor raised the alarm that terrorists were building cells within the FCT. What are you doing to ensure that the FCT is secure?
Regarding security, I want to tell you that the FCT is the most secure part of Nigeria today. Yes, we have insecurity here and there, it is a reality and it is a phenomenon that affects not just Nigeria but even our sub-region. But what I do know is that the security agencies in the FCT are doing extremely well because I will say it again for every incident that you read in the papers or you see on social media or listen to on the radio. I tell you 10 to 15 cases have been nipped in the bud that are not out there in the public. For instance, we have, through the security measures, burst several cells of Boko Haram within the FCT.
Searching areas where they were and the kind of businesses they were doing and how they were able to blend easily within the wider community are some of the things that cannot be divulged here. But I tell you, even yesterday or was it two days ago, a plan was hatched to kidnap two prominent people but because of modern technology now, because of the way the security agencies network among themselves, these plans were uncovered.
When a doctor was murdered in Games Village, there were a lot of issues, and it turned out that those that murdered him were those closest to him. Using technology everybody was napped at the time when the police were being bashed. We had information about one or two people already, but we couldn’t divulge that to the general public because if you do so, others that were on the run will know. Eventually, that thing was cracked and they were arrested and are undergoing all the normal processes. The poor lady, who was murdered in Maitama and her corpse burnt, who had a child, who was an NYSC member, it was all there in the press. But now it has been cracked. Those who did the murder have been arrested. So, all these things happen.
Sometimes that’s why I say we need to own the city. We need to love the city. Each time a big headline comes like this, it resonates across the entire world and they see our beautiful city under siege. Now all this information even if it’s divulged, and it has been divulged, it doesn’t get the prominence coverage it deserves. The first incident was on the front pages and was breaking news on all the social platforms. But the explanation I gave you was also in the news, but hidden somewhere where you don’t see. So this is just my appeal to you.
Having said that, I want to tell you that yes, we have pockets of criminality here and there but the FCT is the most secured part of Nigeria. Insecurity is everywhere, for those of you who live in New York, go to the Bronx and Queens, and for those that live in London, go to other areas. It’s everywhere. But if we all organise ourselves and love the city and fight for the city, these are all things we are going to fight for.
How are you addressing the issue of infrastructure deficit in the FCT?
When I was appointed in November 2015, from the very beginning, my team and I looked at the FCT and appraised the level of work that we inherited and we realized that if we did not focus on the projects we found on the ground, then within a few years, Abuja will become a place where people cannot live.
That has always guided my team and I to work on infrastructure, complete the ongoing projects and then looking at the demographic trends and trajectory that we all envisage the FCT was going to be, we decided to embark on some additional new critical projects.
Some of the public buildings that have received attention from the FCT administration include major roads in the city centre and satellite towns, the reconstructed UN building in Abuja, National Mosques and National Christian Centre at N500 million each. The most important is that these places are owned by the general public, and they are edifices that we feel very proud of as an administration, we are giving them token support to make sure that these places.
In 2011, the Boko Haram bombed the UN building in Abuja and we lost 21 people in that incident but when President Buhari came on board in 2015, he was informed of what happened and he gave a substantial amount to the FCT to reconstruct that building.
That building has been done and now it is functional, the immediate past UN Coordinator in Nigeria told me that apart from the UN headquarters in New York, in the entire globe now, they don’t have any other building that is as beautiful as the one in Abuja.
Commercial motorcyclists, popularly called Okada riders, are becoming a security threat in the FCT. How are you dealing with the issue?
The menace arising from many Okada riders is not just about traffic violations, but also the perpetration of crime. Okada is also used to deliver hard drugs across the city. It requires a multi-sectoral approach to deal with the menace. We are introducing riders’ certification for those using okada for dispatch activities.
Therefore, until you are verified by the directorate of road transport service you may not be able to ride a bike across Abuja. We are re-modelling the licensing and regulations as well. These would be carried out to dissuade the use of Okada. A total ban has been suggested but it is still being considered. Some of the adjoining states are already banning it. And if we don’t ban it, FCT will be a dumping ground in a few years.
