Very soon, we’ll confiscate empty houses in Abuja – FCT Minister Minister of the Federal Capital Territory, Senator Bala Mohammed, in this interview speaks on security of lives and property around Abuja among other issues. OLALEKAN ADETAYO reports: How safe can you conveniently say the Federal Capital Territory is under your watch, especially against the background of three recent bombings recorded in Nyanya and Wuse? Abuja is safe. You can see that the recent bombings you referred to were carried out in vulnerable areas. There is no way one can provide security in some of these areas, that is, the road corridors or outside a shopping mall. We have come up with a very vibrant security protocol, though, we have not launched it. That is what we are implementing. If you are going to any public area, you can see the minimal security infrastructure that is being put in place to ensure we detect those that will become security problems to us. You saw what happened at the shopping mall in Wuse. They had to detonate the bomb on the corridor, not inside the place. The ones in Nyanya were also detonated on the road corridor. Such scenes are not the responsibilities of the Federal Capital Territory. How will you react to concerns that these incidents could have been nipped in the bud or the perpetrators easily arrested if indeed there were functional CCTV cameras in the FCT? We have not been able to install our CCTV cameras in some areas, for example, Nyanya. But we are now taking steps to make sure we put CCTV cameras in such places. Our security protocol is going to make it necessary or mandatory for players in the private sector, local governments, the state of FCT and the Federal Government (even government offices) to establish minimal security infrastructure for making lives safe and secure. The Federal Government has invested so much under this administration in security in the FCT. We have done very well, the Department of State Security, FCT and the Federal Government have done so much under the leadership of President Goodluck Jonathan to make FCT safe and secure. As I said, our security protocol is being established and we are going to make sure it has some kind of legal binding capabilities so that the enforcement will be complied with by individuals and the organised private sector. All public places like shopping malls, markets, hospitals and schools, must all have the security protocol. We are going to make sure we have security guards in all our offices. It is true that the private guards are providing minimal civilian security services in our offices. What we are doing now is that we say, since the Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps is also providing security guards, who are armed and are here in the FCT, they can provide security services in addition to the social security. By the time we finish, we expect more ministries and departments to utilise this strategic government agency which is NSCDC to provide security in our offices and houses. Although government believes the spread of Ebola Virus Disease has been contained in the country, many people are still afraid. What is your administration doing in the FCT about the disease? Our own implementation of Ebola framework based on the guideline of the Federal Ministry of Health, is well thought out. All schools have minimal health facilities. We are going to spend about N360 million very soon to make sure we provide water, sanitisers and minimal security for our people. What is your administration doing to bring down high cost of rent as accommodation in FCT is out of the reach of the average Nigerian? We are doing so much to encourage the private sector to reduce the housing and infrastructural deficit in the FCT. The land swap is being done to see land as a resource to build 10 more districts. The FCT was conceptualised as a territory with 8,000sq/km, with a 250,000km radius Federal Capital city. It was supposed to have been built within 25 years from the day it was established 35 years ago. Within that, we have 78 districts and eight sector areas. So far, we have done five districts and two sector areas within 35 years. Within that period, the issue of social and affordable housing has not been embedded in the planning aspect. Of course, we borrowed the concept of the city from Brasilia in Brazil, where the satellite towns feed the city with a robust transportation system. But we did not even develop our transportation system until under President Goodluck Jonathan when we started the light rail project. So, there is pressure on demand for housing in the city and that is why the cost of rent is so high. People have to pay two, three years rent in some cases which is not in line with global best practices. All over the world, you can pay for a week or a month to have a house. But here, because of the law of demand and supply, the cost is very high. That is why we are encouraging the private sector to develop districts and build houses. We created new districts for social and affordable houses in Wasa and Gidandawa so that at least, that aspect of social and affordable housing that would serve the lower and middle cadre manpower of FCT would be addressed. This has not been addressed. That is why we have the preponderance of sprawling houses from Nyanya up to Keffi that are being built haphazardly. So, we are trying to address this issue and enforce urban and regional planning to create a minimal delight. Once you are able to produce more houses, more primary infrastructure for building houses under mass housing, you reduce the cost. We don’t want to regulate the cost of rent by legislation because we have seen that it has not worked in Lagos. Already, the cost is coming down because houses are being built. Some of the houses are empty and we are going to charge those houses that are empty and not being occupied by anyone. One, it is to stem the tide of corruption where some politicians buy such houses and keep. This has security implications. Already, the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission is working with us to make sure we know those who own the houses that are being kept in highbrow places in Abuja that are not being occupied. We shall charge them, and we shall confiscate them. Our property tax will be introduced, it would be able to do away with all the irregularities because it is a whole gamut of problems we want to address by legislation and by investment drive. How will you assess the performance of the Area Council Re-certification Scheme which your administration introduced? The Area Council Re-certification Scheme has not succeeded the way I wanted. It is not 100 per cent successful, I must concede. That is why just recently, I held a meeting with all the stakeholders, the management of ACTRIS, the Federal Capital Development Authority, Survey and Mapping, AGIS as its Department of Land, Department of Mass Housing, and the Department of Urban and Regional Planning to make sure that all the statutory duties are performed and that there are no negative impacts on the implementation of Area Council Re-certification Scheme. I discovered that there had been abuse of Area Council Title. Under the Land Use Act, Area Council is not allowed to give out lands, but because that responsibility had been delegated by my predecessors, it was abused in such a manner that there are levels of approvals. On one particular land, you will discover five allocations, four of which are fraudulently done. For instance, a land officer that has been sacked or has no authority, but by carrying a printed letterhead, allocated land and so on and so forth. It is, therefore, difficult to reach a conclusion on who owns the land. Otherwise, it leads to litigation. So we are being careful to make sure we determine those who actually have the proper titles. Of course, the Land Use Act does not recognise Area Council Title, as far as the FCT is concerned. There are traditional owners who are in other states, but not in the FCT. People have bought houses from the owners of the mass houses and they need titles to be able to provide urban and regional plan with the required coordinates. This is to enable those who have bought those houses to use their titles for collateral and so on and so forth, but they have not been given this opportunity. Take for example, Gwarimpa. We gave the land to the Federal Housing Authority but we are the only ones that can give titles. People are yearning for titles and are ready to pay for them. We will generate huge money. And of course we have a comprehensive document in terms of layout that we are supposed to have, based on Abuja Master plan. As of today, if you go to the Area Council, somebody may come and say there is a layout there. This has been happening in the last 20 years and I have the singular honour and privilege of this issue otherwise we would forget about FCT if we allow the surveyors and the fraudsters to go with the practice of coming out with titles and layouts that do not exist in the Abuja Master Plan. Non-indigenes in Abuja have complained about discrimination. They claim that each time they try to resettle from one area to another, they are not given priority like the indigenes. Why are they treated differently? Settlement or compensation has fundamental framework, when you look at it from the point of claim based on the enumeration that is carried out. You cannot come from Bauchi tomorrow and say you are laying claim to land in Abuja. If we do that, it will now become an openhanded situation, where people will come from Kano, Delta, Oyo and Rivers states and say they are laying claims. If you come and stay in Abuja, you are a citizen because this is an area where everybody is a citizen by virtue of the law that establised the FCT. But certainly, the original inhabitants have more claims of their privileges and rights for resettlement and compensation, not people who claim to have bought land from ignorant traditional rulers. You cannot buy land anywhere from traditional institution because as I said earlier, there is no municipal or traditional land ownership in FCT under the Land Use Act of the Federal Government as it relates to FCT. So they cannot lay claim to compensation and resettlement as we are dispensing peculiar service to the original inhabitants who are there. Of course, their own claims have to be verified based on enumeration and the demography that we know. As for people coming,they must beware of fraudsters that will give them land and say district heads or village heads have sold land to them. The district heads are not aware, the middlemen are the ones responsible for this. You see so many houses being built without development control approval, without any title from the Federal Capital Territory. We cannot justify illegalities by doing something that is not given a stamp of authority or approval before it is done. When are we expecting the FCT rail corridor to be completed? By 2015, we should be able to finish the first course of the rail corridor because the financial plan has been concluded. We have remodeled our procurement to take care of plot 1A and 3 and we just signed MoU on B so that we will be able to get the money to do it. We had earlier on wanted to do everything at the same time, but the cost component is the impediment. If we do not do it, we would not be able to conclude the projects and we will just be doing so many things within our resources without concluding anything. In 2015, the rail corridor that will take us to Kubwa and Airport roads would have been concluded. We learnt the seat of the FCT minister is very juicy? It is extremely very hot, it is not as juicy as many people think but certainly, it is the most influential. It is the most visible and the most assessed seat of the Federal Government as a cabinet responsibility. Because it is a responsibility that is hinged on the President who delegates that responsibility to a minister. Again, because of the status of the FCT, every Nigerian, 170 million of them, have a stake in the FCT. So, one is constantly being assessed and under the gaze of everybody. Every Nigerian is an interested party in how the FCT is being administered. It is not a place for somebody who comes from Bauchi or Kebbi or Kaduna, it is a place for all Nigerians. So, the issue of equity and justice must come to the forefront when you are administering FCT in such a manner that you establish structure and even officers that are identified with all the sections of the country. So, the FCT seat is not a juicy position as many people think, it is the most influential place, where somebody can make or mar himself. But it comes with the the opportunity of making sure the spirit of liberty and freedom that should cascade to the whole Nigeria, starts from the Centre of Unity, FCT. You are contesting the governorship seat in Bauchi State on the platform of the Peoples Democratic Party, what informed your decision to contest? My decision is based on the popular demand from my people, because I’m here by the grace of God and because of the opportunity given to me by my people to serve them as a senator. This served as a springboard and if at anytime, they want me to go and serve in whatever capacity, I would. But certainly I am not driven by personal interest or interest to go and acquire anything which I am not presently exposed to where I am. You know that the FCT is just like a state, so whatever privileges and rights that one will get as a governor in any state or in my state, I am already enjoying it. I enjoyed it for almost four years. So I am just service-driven, and of course if I am given the opportunity, I will want to go and make a difference as much as I have done in FCT. This is so that I can replicate a private sector-driven state government that will ensure the private sector complements our inadequacy and limit in terms of finance since we don’t have Internal General Revenue. We are dependent on federal allocation. If you are given the opportunity to pilot the affairs of Bauchi State, what are the priority areas you will focus on? The major area I would concentrate on is education, because Bauchi was known for its contribution to the nation in the area of human capital. But this opportunity is withering, fizzling away because we are no longer producing the required bureaucrats that will come and compete positively with their counterparts at the federal level. Even in the state, we need to do so much that we would bring recreation, innovation and invention with the use of knowledge. You can see that our admission figure in the university is very, very poor. So with the population explosion and redundancy in the system, there is no way we can move the state forward without education. Secondly, I will focus on youth empowerment, provision of social amenities, social services so that people can cultivate their potentiality and to cultivate a sense of self-reliance away from permanent dependency on government patronage, on government employment, on contract. We can use agriculture, the way the Federal Government is doing it. I know very well with my experience here what the Growth Enhancement Scheme is all about, I will click quickly with the Federal Government programme on agriculture so that we can remove our youths from the streets. There are so many of them that are becoming so useless. If we don’t prepare them, there is no how we can develop a state that is going to compete positively with other states. Is there any special way you think you can tackle the issue of insecurity if you eventually become the governor of Bauchi State? Security is under the purview of the Federal Government, but certainly as we are doing in FCT, we will partner and establish a vibrant security framework. All the security agencies will be assisted by the state government to perform their statutory duties but certainly there is so much we can do and I thank the state governor for investing so much in security. That is one area where the Yuguda’s administration has done very well. You can see that despite the fact that I am from the North-East, we don’t have much security challenges in my state. It was due to the investment that the government had done in the area to improve security. But certainly, we will give it very hard look using the community-based approach, where we are going to see the vigilante handling the problem. Where we are going to use the local authorities, the traditional institutions, and even the youths to make sure we create a buffer which is secondary to normal security apparatus that are operating in the state. Opposition in Bauchi State is glaring, do you think you stand a chance? There is no opposition in Bauchi, PDP is in Bauchi, if you go to Bauchi, the governor is a PDP man, the national chairman of PDP is from Bauchi, I am from Bauchi, the former Secretary to the Government of the Federation is from Buacos. All we need to do is to come together so that we can deliver Goodluck and deliver the governor that would be elected under our good party. You are a leader in the North by virtue of your position, there are so many elders’ organisations in the North yet the region appears not organised, what really is the problem? Out of modesty and respect for elders, I always shy away from discussing issues that have to do with the North when it comes to leadership. I think there is complete absence of leadership and some of us have not reached the level where we can say we are leading the North, as our elders whom we have looked up to are still around. Are they still making impact? The impact is very minimal and I will say the opposition against the current administration is shortchanging the North. The opposition or acrimony or the gang up against President Goodluck Jonathan is not showing that we know what we are doing in general because politics today is within the framework of democracy and participatory democracy. You have to participate and contribute your quota and get reward. We alienate the North which is the mainstream Nigerian political bloc to the periphery or to the opposition, then we are shortchanging ourselves in terms of amenities and in terms of dividends of democracy that we should be getting. Jonathan is not against the North, he has given us all these posts and we are northern children, we are northern members and are performing to the best of our abilities, he has never discriminated against us. What we are pleading with our elders and other leaders of the North is to give us the opportunity to represent the North within the committee of local government and state administrations. At the end of the day, we will see what we can do by coming together to say we have challenges of security, challenges of poverty, etc. What do we do? Rather than always thinking that we will be leading. We have led for so many years, what have we done to the North? Now that it is the time for another section of the country, we should be good ambassadors of our section to give support, so that by the time the power is devolved to the North, we too will get the kind of support we are expecting from our southern or eastern compatriots. I am calling on our elders to see this tenure as a devolution of power which is accentuated by our forefathers from the North, Sardauna, Tafawa Balewa, who have also enjoyed such support when they were forming government in the first and second republic in the time of Shagari. Copyright PUNCH. All rights reserved. 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Posted on: Fri, 10 Oct 2014 23:18:11 +0000
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