FCT AND ABANDONED PROJECTS

Recent efforts by the FCT Administration to complete all abandoned projects in the territory is another demonstration that governance is about setting priorities right. It shows that the current FCT Minister, Malam Muhammad Musa Bello, fully understands the dangers that the hydra-headed monster of abandoned projects portends to the country’s economy.

Since independence, the problem of abandoned projects has been huge, preventing the masses from enjoying maximum benefit from their taxes and the established infrastructure. It is such that whenever a new government or administration comes into power, virtually all ongoing projects and programmes, no matter how laudable and people-oriented, are often stopped and abandoned.

The number of abandoned projects in Nigeria today is alarming. Moreover, it has started affecting the national economy disastrously. Every new government considers projects and programmes of its predecessors more as legacy and ideas rather than ways meant to improve the people’s well-being. For instance, the National Economic Empowerment and Development Strategy (NEEDS) of the Obasanjo’s administration was abandoned by Umaru Yar’Adua simply because it was seen as the legacy of Chief Olusegun Obasanjo. Yar’Adua’s seven-point agenda was replaced with the transformation agenda by Jonathan’s government even though Jonathan was part of Yar’Adua’s administration. Today we have the change agenda.

We cannot move further with this trend of wastefully abandoning projects and programmes merely on the basis of prejudice, selfish desire, inferiority complex and extravagance. Some people argue the need to discontinue ongoing projects or programmes because those projects were awarded to party men, political associates, friends and family members of the outgoing leaders, and they might not even possess any technical knowledge needed to run the projects.

But at the same time, discontinuing these projects, especially the ones that have passed due process, means that no value has been added to the society at the end of the day. Amidst harsh economic reality in Nigeria, political office holders cannot afford to follow the trend of abandoning their predecessors’ projects for the people’s sake.

This is why it gladdens the heart here in the FCT to see that such projects as the reconstruction and expansion of the country’s most modern 10-lane multiple carriage super highways: the Umaru Musa Yar’Adua (Airport Road) Expressway, and the Outer Northern (Murtala Muhammed) Expressway otherwise known as the Zuba/Kubwa/City Centre highway, are being pursued to their logical conclusion by the current FCT Administration.

Also the Abuja rail mass projects stalled for years now, the railway overhead bridges, the trumpet interchange at the airport junction by Bill Clinton Drive have been revived and are expected to be completed by the second or third quarter of this year.

There is also the Circle Road around the Three-Arms zone which has been completed while B6 and B12 is currently witnessing rapid development. The stadium end of these roads have been completed and open to traffic including the underpasses from the National Stadium connecting the proposed Stadium Railway Station for huge population during sporting events.

The FCT Minister has other laudable initiatives to his name that have been going on pari-pasu with the projects he inherited like the clean and green initiatives which seeks to address the problem of environmental pollution through aggressive tree planting, the waste to wealth initiative that seeks to introduce waste recycling in Abuja, the rehabilitation of commercial sex workers, strict enforcement of traffic rules and blockages of sources of financial leakages in the system all of which are commendable.

To ensure that the problem of abandoned projects does not continue to hinder our development, there is a need for laudable government projects, programmes and policies to be backed and protected by the national or state assemblies. These are the only ways a new administration would not be able to abandon them as they are backed by law.

The government must curb the temptations or pressures to embark on new projects when so many remain uncompleted or abandoned. Desirable projects must be continued irrespective of whichever administration initiated them.

––Danladi Akilu, Gudu District, Abuja