What I have done to keep Abuja cleaner— AMMC Coordinator
Umar Shuaibu is the coordinator of Abuja Metropolitan Management Council (AMMC) and in this interview, he has said the council’s concerted efforts in demolishing illegal structures, enforcing environmental laws, maintaining street lights among other thing
It is one year since you were appointed the coordinator of AMMC, what would you count as your achievements in the past one year?
First of all I want to thank the Almighty Allah for giving me the opportunity to serve the people. For an office like this, which is saddled with the responsibility of maintaining the city and ensuring that the Abuja master plan is implemented, there are also some challenges. The first challenge that confronted me was the issue of streetlights; issue of compliance during regulations and then there was the issue of supervision of the enforcement of Abuja Environmental Protection Board (AEPB) and issues that deal with the management of placements of advertisements. The biggest department in AMMC is the department of development control because of the role it plays in the area of ensuring that people build according to regulations.
In the past, before our coming, we had the problem of the will to give approval for the removal of illegal structures. When we came, the Minister, Malam Muhammad Musa Bello, gave us mandate, an express order, that every illegal developments in the FCT should be removed. We worked tirelessly to ensure that all these challenges we faced when we came on board are confronted head-on and we have ensured that all those excesses in the past were no longer tolerated.
We also have issues of development on service lines (high tension lines) which had been going on for a very long time. We have issues of development on areas that are earmarked for development corridors, all those housing estates that were developed on arterial roads we will see to it that they are removed so that whenever the authorities want to implement the provision of these roads, we will not any issues. We liaised with the Transmission Company of Nigeria (TCN) and ensured that those buildings under the high tension lines were removed.
The issues that concern the environmental protection board, we made sure that we increased the number of environmental marshals and then provide so many pin down points where we have our officials, FRSC officials, VIO and other security agencies, to stop taxis from illegal parking and stop people from indiscriminate dumping of solid waste in the city.
We also have the problem of the defacing of the city with posters. We made sure that we carried out campaigns to sensitise people to stop pasting posters around the city; we sensitised political parties and you will see that it is greatly controlled in Abuja today, our city is cleaner.
The issue of security facilities like street lights that were not operational before, many of them are now in place. We have challenges with vandalisation which we have confronted head-on and we have made progress as far as I am concerned.
We have noticed that you have not provided public conveniences in the city and people have found some green areas convenient places to defecate openly. How does that impact on your drive to keep the city clean and healthy?
Since we came in, there was a committee that was set up to see that this thing is done properly. We are working on it and as soon as the committee submits its report, we will commence implementation. There were public conveniences in the city before but they were not professionally done, so we want to do it the right way these time.
You gave out a strong warning to political parties and religious groups to desist from defacing the city with posters or face the wrath of the law. Have you arrested and prosecuted some defaulters so far?
Yes we have reactivated the mobile courts and they are sitting so that whenever we have defaulters, we prosecute them. The mobile courts sit along the ONEX and along the Airport Road to ensure that all those involved in illegal activities in the city are prosecuted. And that is why there is a drastic reduction in such activities.
Going forward, what are those things you would want to achieve so that they will remain your legacy when you leave this office?
First of all, this council is not charged with physical development but maintenance of the facilities that are being built. So what we want to achieve here is to make sure that people respect law and order and people get more enlightened about what to do as far as the maintenance of facilities in Abuja are concerned, we want to leave the city residents more informed, more compliant with laws and development plans.