Bala Mohammed Stewardship in FCT

Paucity of funds notwithstanding, Bala Mohammed, the Federal Capital Territory Minister, achieved a lot within the permissible limits of resources available to him.

In April 2010, when Bala assumed office as the minister, he met a ministry that was virtually at a crossroads, with the staff disillusioned by the devastating effect of maladministration, almost losing faith in the ability of any minister in making any positive change. Staff morale was at low ebb.

Analysts agree that Bala indeed stepped into office armed with a “correcting fluid” with a high preponderance of revolutionary zeal, adorning the garb of a reformer. With a strong passion for turning around the then ailing fortunes of the ministry, unchained it and with frenzy launched it on the path of workability.

With honesty and transparency as hand maidens, Bala has been able to impact positively on the morale of staff and the overall fortunes of the ministry, so much so that even his worst critics readily admit that he has become the most legitimising factor of the Jonathan administration. Not a man given to frivolities, Bala on assumption of office immediately fashioned out multi-dimensional strategies to confront the hydra-headed problems confronting the nation’s capital city and the result has been awe-inspiring. So, due to space and time constraints, I shall highlight some of the outstanding achievements of this humble man from Bauchi State, trying in the process, to capture as many of those achievements as possible.

The first thing he did was to break the vicious circle of land racketeering by setting a committee headed by Senator Saidu Dansadau, a development that led to the upgrading and repositioning of land administration in the territory.

Others are development of Katampe District, which is being executed through Public Private Partnership and estimated at over N61, 194, 747, 645.00, with Kagini 1 District costing N52, 609, 879, 284.47, while Maitama Extension District is gulping N137, 454, 626,929.

The minister has equally recorded tremendous achievements in the area of agricultural development and railway modernisation. In this regard, the first phase of the light rail and Abuja-Kaduna railway projects embarked upon by the administration is nearing completion and is expected to ferry 700,000 passengers daily. Another is the second phase of the Abuja Railway connecting the ever busy Nyanya—Mararaba axis valued at $750m, whose contract was recently signed by the minister under a PPP arrangement.

The list of the minister’s achievements is long. It also includes: 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, as well as the dualisation of the Nyanya-Abuja Expressway, all of which have attained 90% completion level.

Others are: Resurfacing/ Reconstruction of aging roads in Garki 1 and Wuse 1 districts; expansion of KujeGwagwalada; Gitata bypass; Karshi – Apo bypass; Sunrise – Guzape bypass; GwagwaladaDobi connection and the Bwari Township roads projects; the nearly 100 per cent completed Gurara-Lower Usman Dam road that connects the FCT with Kaduna State at Jere; completion of work on Tanks 1 and 6 with 40, 000 cubic centimetres storage capacity; attraction of foreign and local investments, totalling over $20 billion.

And that is not all. In a drive to make Abuja Africa’s preferred investment destination, a 37-storey World Trade Centre estimated at $1.2bn (approximately N180 billion) is being built at the former Bakassi Market, under a PPP arrangement with the Churchgate Group; the Abuja Town Centre project valued at $2.7bn is also on card with the Chikason Group to bequeath to the nation’s capital a world- class 24-hour business district ($4.5bn), which has the richest comparable to Manhattan in man and woman in Africa, New York, Oxford Street in Aliko Dangote and Folorunsho London, or the Champ D’Elysee Alakija, respectively participatining.Paris;theAbujaMillennium City Project, the biggest single etermined to promote the private investment in housing in culture of recreation, cleanliness Africa valued at $18bn is being and ascetic beauty of the FCT, handled by a consortium under the minister through Otunba the incorporated name, Nigeria Runsewe Committee revived Centenary City, Plc; a PPP parks and gardens in the initiative between FCTA and territory and also introduced COHART Group worth $150 a robust and dynamic traffic million to develop Abuja Film control and regulation via Village International (AFVI); doubling the staff strength of a PPP initiative for Katampe the Directorate of Road Traffic District infrastructure with Services (VIO) and provision of capital inflow of over N61billion better equipment. and the Land Swap Project