FCT minister’s development strides By Jamila Musa

The people of Ashafa, Kwali Area Council in the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), had a feel of the developmental strides of the FCT Minister, Muhammad Musa Bello with the commencement of work on the Ashara bridge project which the people have for long yearned for.
The project is in fulfillment of the minister’s promise to residents of the FCT that every town, hamlet, cranny and most importantly the district would have a feel of his development philosophy and dispositions.
The Ashafa Bridge, which for so long and within many administrations of the FCT that preceded the Muhammad Bello administration had been earmarked for completion but failed, has today seen the light of the day due to the promise keeping disposition of Bello.
The project, which has a capital budget of N1.5 billion, is due to be completed within the life span of this administration because of its importance both to the inhabitants of the FCT as well as its economic and security imperatives.
The Ashafa Bridge project, which is of great socio-economic and political importance, has been applauded by all and sundry.
In the economic sphere, the people living in the environs and district within the Ashafa axis have been denied the benefits of the importance of interconnectivity to the economic life of the people.
It is expected that when completed and commissioned the economic life of the people within the jurisdiction of the bridge shall be enhanced.
The areas within and around the Ashafa areas shall witness huge infrastructural and developmental facilities because of the constraints that has militated against the development of that areas in the past will be removed.
We can also see that the bridge is the pathway to the people’s individual development as residents shall now see more investments and expansion of business in their areas.
Investors would troop in en mass as one of the basic infrastructural incentives needed for the development of any area has been provided.
The minister has shown as he has always done that this administration’s leitmotiv purpose is the provision of infrastructural incentives that drive and spur the people’s individual development.
The finances in the possession of government are lean but this administration has shown that it can frugally use these lean and meagre resources to provide for the basic competing needs of Abuja residents.
The flag off and commencement of the Ashafa Bridge project represents hope and responsibility.
The hope emanates from the fact that government, particularly the administration of Muhammad Bello, means well for all districts in the FCT and is ready to provide the enabling environment for the growth of all sectors and segments of the society to flourish and grow.
Government has a responsibility because the government needs to show that it has a pivotal role to play in the development of all communities.
The minister has encouraged development in several fields by the provision of developmental incentives needed to make the people feel the pulse of development.
It has also rekindled the hope of the people through the provision of requisite and critical infrastructural facilities more than any minister since the creation of the FCT.
A fact that is trite and incontestable.
The minister has used the provision of the Ashafa Bridge to reassure the people of the FCT that as the government’s revenue and resources increases, more development in its physicality shall be provided as democracy dividends to the people.
The commencement of the Ashafa bridge project has been commended as a quick response and fix project deliberately conceptualised by a government that wants to illustrate its care for the people, irrespective of the calibre of the residents.
The FCT minister has always stated that no community needs to know anybody or have people in government before his government looks into the provision of their required infrastructural projects.
He has walked his talk by the provision of needed infrastructural developmental needs of virtually all districts to illustrate that all crannies of the FCT are important to his administration for the singular fact that we are all Nigerians.
The FCT at this juncture has shown that it is now resolved more than ever before to listen to the cries of communities on linkages issues.
To many communities that lack most of the needed infrastructural linkages to other communities like roads and bridges, the provision of the Ashafa bridge project is illustrative – your needs are being looked into and as the revenue and financial buoyancy of this administration increases, your needs shall be provided.
This is a listening leadership that has shown severally that it is responsible and responsive to the needs of all communities in the FCT.
What the people need do is to be responsible for and protective of all the already built and provided infrastructure in their domain as this will encourage the FCT administration to do more in the area of the provision of the communities’ required infrastructural needs.
We cannot continue to tolerate and encourage the vandalisation and destruction of government’s provided developmental infrastructure in the FCT and even the country as a whole.
Jamila Musa writes from Abuja