Shortly after he was made FCT minister, Honourasble Nyesom Wike made a statement that nearly every FCT minister, except the very first one, before him made on assumption of duty. He said that he will revoke the land allocation of some Nigerians whose sole aim is to get allocation for speculative business purpose and earning huge profits for their efforts as a result but never to develop them for the growth and development of Abuja as originally intended.
Some wise Nigerians are, of course, not fooled by the statements and ways of their leaders. They know them and their tricks only too well. And so some cynical Nigerians dismissed Wikes threat saying merely that his statement is a signal that land possessions in Abuja are about to change hands. That lands will soon be taken away from the honest, the poor and the less powerful and shared among the rich and powerful, leaving room for another FCT minister after him to say some day exactly what he has just said!
A few days after that statement, Wike announced the revocation of some prime land in the Wuye District of Abuja. A few former governors, ministers and other highly placed citizens were said to have lost their plots to convince skeptical Nigerians that Wike means business. Trust Nigerians. Some are still saying that if those former big men and women do not retake their possession now openly or secretly in a typical Nigerian way they will certainly do so if a new friendly administration comes into office one day.
Land politics in Abuja is a game almost all FCT ministers must actively play because land is the second oil well in Nigeria. With Abuja land, an adroit FCT minister and the president that appointed him can make dirt poor person become an instant millionaire or billionaire or even a zillionaire or whatever he likes. The minister can go to his village, transport some of his kinsmen and women to Abuja, house them in a hotel, give them juicy allocation and within a week, these paupers can become brand new billionaires. They can use a small fraction of their loot to buy Ghana-Must Go or some luxury boxes to carry their new wealth home. Just like that. This is Nigeria.
While this game is on, Abuja prides itself as having the most costly estate in the whole world. Abuja would have been the most livable city of the modern world. Food is relatively cheap here. Crime rate is not too bad, the climate is good and residents seem insulated from the sectarian and communal violence that erupts every now and then in other places of its kind in Nigeria. But Abuja seems to be a place where its residents work and steal public funds in order to be able to pay rents or build houses.
Land speculation is obviously one of the reasons why some fight and get allocation and refuse to develop them for those who need houses to live in and also to do their business. Speculators must wait for the prices of their plots to appreciate and reasonably well too so that they can sell and make handsome profits. But the other truth and the bigger truth is also that there are many honest citizens who acquire plots of land cheaply from Government but lack the means to develop them. Wike and other ministers before him and others that will come after him cannot blame them for this misfortune.
What Wike and others before him and may be, some coming after him, have not done or are not likely to do, is to look dispassionately at the forces at play in Abuja that is responsible for why houses are never ever enough for residents of the federal capital city.
Several years ago when Lagos used to be the capital of Nigeria and was contending with its role, it was revealed that over 800,000 persons from all over Nigeria used to come to Lagos every day, becoming residents of the city and swelling the citys challenges. Not many Nigerians, including those who become FCT ministers, appear to know whether a similar migration is happening to Abuja.
A casual observer can easily see that Abuja is steadily becoming an amenity ward for sick Nigerians from all over the country who see the place as one to repair to and come rest or refresh in when you have worked very hard in your community or state or you are not enjoy peace and stability in your current place of resident. Opportunities are fast shrinking in many communities and states of the federation. More alarmingly, the many violent crises taking place in many parts of the country, especially in the northern parts, is leading to the relocation of many people to the FCT.
I have acted as agents to many people who have sold their properties to those who buy to remove their aged parents and relatives from states of the North and keep in the relative safety of Abuja and environs.
Rather that use the old worn trick of threat, intimidation and bravado of dispossessing some in order to favour others who are connected or powerful, Minister Wike should do the following: (1) use the instrumentality of his enormous office to open more plots of residential, commercial and industrial land as a matter of great urgency (2) use his office to speed up the re-organisation of plots in Kubwa and other areas so that those who have finished paying their ground rents can get the go-ahead to start building (3) come up with an innovative idea of building Abuja up as a special project to benefit all Nigerians wherein within a specified number of years, say, five years, all building materials will be procured by the FGN, housed within the FCT and sold at half the market price to anyone building within the FCT. The goal of this idea is to reduce the price of building in Abuja and consequently, to reduce the cost of rent by more than 50 per cent.
I am speaking here as a lay man and a non-politician and a non-businessman but you can see the honesty of my proposition and my desire to solve a problem.
