The Minister announced to the world the other day, that his administration had demolished 124,000 houses since the Jonathan administration was voted in 2010, by the same people who he is now unleashing the madness of state upon today! When we consider that each of those houses are potentially occupied by at least five Nigerians, Mr Balla is telling us he has displaced 620,000 Nigerians!And he said that with a satisfied grin on his face. I quote in below: “My predecessor demolished about 30,000 houses, I’m sorry to say I have demolished about 124,000 since I came, maybe because the challenges are different… We are doing this to get the Abuja Masterplan correctly, we are demolishing and we will continue to demolish…. We have to complete the building in Wasa and other places before we can resettle them… The structures ought to have been completed three years before I assumed office but I am assuring you that we shall complete them very soon.”
Now, perhaps the Minister reckons that his sole purpose as an administrator is to demolish houses. It is sad. And it calls to question, the fundamental basis of our actions and indeed existence. If so many houses are illegal in Abuja, then our existence as a people must itself be illegal. This demolition issue commenced in the days of El-Rufai on a large scale, and truth be told, not many more illegal houses have been built since then, because people learnt their lessons. What has happened is that the so-called administrators of Abuja, think up new schemes daily, and basically declare anywhere that catches their greedy fancy, illegal! Otherwise why would ‘DEMOLITION’ be a permanent agenda for any FCT Minister?
Nigerians suffer so much in silence. As at last count, perhaps 5million Nigerians have been displaced by the mismanagement of two dams in Nigeria and Cameroun. Many dead! But a more regular displacement is what happens in Abuja; a city which its most fiery minister, Nasir El-Rufai, declared that ‘Abuja is not for the poor… if you earn less than N50,000 monthly return to your village!’.
It so happened that the practice of governmental impunity, started under Mr Elrufai, has only expanded under Mr Bala. A few weeks ago, and in total contempt of judicial processes, the current FCT administration went ahead and demolished a few well-built mass housing estates along the airport road. The owners of some of the demolished houses have their documents, and their developers have approvals properly signed since 2004. But that doesn’t count in Nigeria, much less in the arcane, corruption-ridden, madly ostentatious city of Abuja, a city where many come, and run berserk with money and power! These people whose houses have been levelled will likely join the thousands who have met with similar fate for several years now. Many suffer in silence, but many wait for their opportunity to revenge on the state by being inordinately corrupt and greedy. Indeed such ill-treatment is responsible for the wickedness Nigerians often show – like burning human beings alive!
Before the Lugbe estates demolition, Mr Bala’s demolition crews were in Mpape, where they rendered hundreds of thousands homeless – in defiance of court processes too. It is amusing that those who do the real demolition are themselves poor people. But we know that many of them are drugged out. Just last weekend, we heard the news of how a ‘mobile’ policeman attached to one of the crews in the Apo area, shot live bullets indiscriminately, killing one Lucy, a poor 20-year old salesgirl who worked in a photography shop around there. No one has taken up that case, and perhaps the policeman will live to kill a few more innocent civilians. Rumours have it that the Mpape demolition was in favour of the reigning First Lady, and that the Lugbe area was being cleared for the benefit of members of National Assembly. Disprove them, OgaBala, for that is the word on the street!
Now, we know that Nigerian elite could never have enough of worldly chattels. Many of them live, and die, for the number of houses and lands that they could own. Yet we have all seen the folly of such acquisitions. Since the president himself, swore never to declare his own assets,maybe their greed is justified? But all these preachments are not enough to stay the restless fingers and eyes of Abuja’s bourgeoisie. We have heard before how one of them kept N2 billion in his house, monies embezzled from half-dead pensioners, who actually often die on Abuja roads, while waiting terminally for their dues from decades of hard labour!
So Mr Bala Sir, what exactly is this ‘master plan’ you guys intimidate us with? Who drew the plan and how efficient or effective is it? Is the master plan also responsible for your naming of a whole district after the serving president? Do you know Obasanjo ruled Nigeria as a civilian for 8 years, 3 as a military man, and actually wrote our national anthem and pledge, yet has just one major road named after him, not a whole town?
I ask sir, what is a master plan which has no provision for human beings? How come pedestrians get killed daily just trying to make their ways to their masters houses or to work? How come it took a complaint to the Public Complaint Commission before you started your ‘World Bank-Assisted’ pedestrian bridges? How come there are no public toilets in Abuja, like there are in neighbouring Accra or Nairobi? How come you and your ‘commissioners’ enjoy seeing people bring out their JTs on your well-paved roads to ‘take a leak’ as you scurry past in your tinted vehicles? How come Lagos, without the federal presence will soon outshine your ‘master plan’ city? How come your master plan is only effective when you guys want to use that to arm-twist poor people?
What manner of Federal Capital is it, with no parking spaces for vehicles and no mass transit? Where water does not flow in most of its posh areas? Where your greatest idea – public parks – have become mere drinking and ‘ashawo’ joints, and drug havens, for drivers to tank up on alcohol, weed and whatnot, before resuming their suicidal dalliance with other vehicles? Where there are no speed limits because the big men are the ones that first flaunt traffic rules? Where there are no road markings, no offsets and hard shoulders by the expressroads, where fatal accidents are a dime a dozen? Where crazy politicians and crazier religious houses compete for space in pasting crazy posters and defacing the ambience? Where rents are criminally prohibitive? Where accommodation for the poor and middle income people, who serve the mega rich and the mostly ill-gotten wealth, in a ratio of 10 poor people (driver, cleaners, maiguard, houseboy, housegirl etc), is a mere afterthought (as you rightlynoted above) that will never come to fruition? What manner of master plan gave us this city, an epitome of waste, sleaze, indiscipline and inefficiency, a symptom of what Nigeria has become before our very eyes?
But I can only leave you with the same advise I gave Mr Elrufai – which he never took. I had quoted for him a Chinese adage: “If your vision is one year, cultivate flowers, if it is ten years, cultivate a tree, if it is eternity, cultivate people”. Need I tell you that rather than cultivate, you are actually cutting people down without mercy?
Join Daily Trust WhatsApp Community For Quick Access To News and Happenings Around You.
