I was attending
secondary school in Benin City, Edo State, when I heard about this
famous Federal Capital Territory from my church choir master. He was a
business mogul and one of the major owners of Agura Hotel. He drove in
and out of church with cars and buses heavily branded with ‘Agura
Golden Tulip Hotel’.
He advertised the
hotel so much in Benin that it was like Abuja was somewhere in Edo
State, and almost all of us in that church looked forward to staying in
the hotel for at least one night. His love and passion for everything
Agura was captured in the lines of a television jingle which says
“…don’t say you are going to Abuja, say you are going to Agura”.
He succeeded in
mobilising a good number of young men and women from my church, but I
was not one of them because I was still in school and, to be candid, I
did not know God had planted my wife and, therefore, my life and
destiny in Abuja, for lo and behold, I was called up for national youth
service to Agura, sorry, Abuja.
It was not just the
passion for the hotel that my choir master exuded. As I was to discover
later, he had plans to run for the prestigious post of Mayor of the
Federal Capital Territory. He painted Abuja like paradise to us, and as
they built the hotel in Abuja, you could tell the excitement and joy
that radiated from my choir master’s face.
He was doing
something he was obviously proud of. I believe he wanted to do more,
but the military and that particular cabal did not allow that dream to
come to fruition, as they selfishly and wickedly changed our
constitution and put a minister in charge of the FCT.
And now, for those
of us who have taken Abuja as our home, we cannot hold anyone
responsible for the over development or underdevelopment of the city.
With all the funds released since IBB moved in here, things seem to be
falling apart and now, it looks like the centre cannot hold because of
too much concentration at the centre: Wuse, Wuse 2, Garki, Maitama,
Asokoro, and the central area where the three arms zone is located.
To leave a legacy,
you must have some kind of passion; part of you must be in and believe
in that dream, whether physical or psychological. Today, I have not
seen any sign of my famous choir master in and around Agura Hotel, but
the structure is still standing tall and competing favourably with
other hotels within its class and above.
I have not, and
believe I will not, see any minister that will exude that passion to
genuinely develop Abuja the way it was planned, without first
satisfying his own personal or cabalistic greed because as we all have
noticed, nobody goes to any school to study to become a minister, at
least not yet in Nigeria where a lawyer can be made Minister of Health.
So it seems no
individual has been trained or packaged to handle the FCT. But if it
was a Mayor, there would be some kind of plan and so no minister of the
FCT has genuinely gone out of his way to improve the lot of Abuja
people.
Did I hear somebody
say El-Rufai? How much development did he bring to Kuje, Kubwa, Nyanya,
Gwagwalada, Abaji, Bwari, or Kwali? Well, to be fair to him, he looks
the best yet of all the men that have been appointed to administer the
FCT. The situation today would have been worse, but for the timely
intervention of the dare devil El-Rufai who reclaimed Abuja from slum
titans. But he too is guilty of not developing beyond the city centre
or what has been called ‘Phase 1’ in the master plan.
The only way to
decongest the centre is to deliberately ensure that there is constant
light, good drinking water, and mesmerizing road network in all the
Area Council’s headquarters and the satellite towns.
In fact, the
grapevine says that the FCT’s minister’s office was originally to be
located in Gwagwalada, where the University of Abuja is. It was only
Maman Kontagora (former FCT minister) that tried to do anything
reasonable about Gwagwalada.
Until the Uniabuja
students and the entire Abuja people decide to Mubarak one FCT
Minister, this matter will not be taken seriously and no House Member
or Senator representing the FCT has thought it necessary to take up
this issue vigorously.
Sincerely, it is time for a return of the Mayor. Perhaps, we would
then have an accountable government of the FCT and a House of Assembly
of our own where the Mayor will be and can be held responsible for his
actions or inactions, where there will be a serious contest for the
National Assembly seats, and hollow headed individuals who are
completely bereft of ideas will not find themselves in those offices.
