By Rogers Edor Ochela
Nigerians are in harmony that the greatest obstacle to Nigeria’s accelerated development is lack of continuity in government policies and programmes.
That explains why Nigeria, prior to the inception of this administration, was virtually a huge cemetery of abandoned projects, a development that has necessitated this all-important question: How can the nation experience accelerated development and attract foreign investors when government’s policies and programmes continue to change with the rapidity of Lake Victoria Falls?
It is against this backdrop that when Senator Bala Abdulkadir Mohammed took charge as Minister of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) in 2010, he not only ensured the completion of some of his predecessors’ viable projects, but also initiated new ones capable of taking the territory from the fringes of development to an Eldorado.
Since he mounted the saddle of leadership in the FCT, his battle cry, both at home and abroad, has been that of expeditious development of the territory in all ramifications. Recently, his quest to attract foreign investment into the territory found expression at the 2014 Conference of Nigerians in Diaspora held at the Embassy Suites, Columbus, Ohio, USA, where he called on Nigerians in the Diaspora to take opportunity of the current transformation agenda and invest in Nigeria, particularly FCT.
Represented by FCT Permanent Secretary, Engr. John Chukwu, Bala, who urged the Nigerian Diasporans to think more about what they can contribute to the development of Nigeria, said that the implementation thrust of the Transformation Agenda in FCT was to open up the territory to unfettered private capital-driven development, most especially through Land Swap programme as a catalyst for accelerated development.
The celebrated event with the epochal theme, “Nigeria’s Transformation Agenda and Leadership Accountability: The Role of Nigerians in Diaspora,” generated enormous world-wide attention on account of Bala’s innovative land swap policy, which was designed to catalyze development and bring down spiraling property cost in the nation’s capital.
The event offered wonderful opportunity to Nigerians in the Diaspora, highly influential and other notable groups to be enamoured of the developments in the FCT and the reforms under Bala’s leadership, which has opened up the territory for private capital inflow, thereby accelerating its development.
Consequently, these Diaspora Nigerians and other potential investors fascinated by the enormous prospects of the Land Swap policy and the administration’s Private Public Partnership (PPP) programmes have expressed interest in investing in housing, transportation, health, power, environmental sanitation and agriculture.
One fundamental issue that ran through the entire gamut of discussion among the delegates at the summit was the strong correlation some of them drew between the unfolding infrastructural revolution taking place in Abuja and the awe-inspiring transformation of Dubai under its Prime Minister, Sheikh Mohammad Bin Rashid Al Maktoum.
The land reform decree issued by Sheikh Mohammed in 2002 allowing foreigners to own real estate in Dubai – a first in any Gulf state, is akin to the courageous land reforms and the swap strategy introduced by Senator Mohammed in 2011 in FCT.
While prior to the reforms introduced by Sheikh Mohammad, Dubai had no real estate market and land was given out under semi-feudalism, the land swap initiative of the Bala Mohammed administration permits investors to sell plots of land or houses to individuals, companies and institutions as the case may be, provided the investor has serviced the district with stipulated infrastructure. The intention is to narrow the gap between plots/housing demand and supply.
On land swap programme, the private sector would be incentivized to provide site and services within the districts. The emphasis would be for government to provide the policy, legal regulatory environment for seamless private sector participation in the development of the districts of the FCT.
Since his appointment as FCT Minister, the concept of governance has undergone revolutionary changes in the territory on account of his inspired leadership and admirable husbandry of both human and financial resources. Through discipline, result-oriented work, consistent performance and financial frugality, Bala, like Sheikh Mohammad of Dubai, has put FCT on the path of accelerated development worthy of emulation by his ministerial contemporaries.
And that is not where the similarity ends: another area is in meeting adversity with courage and optimism, a weapon often deployed by Bala and the Sheikh in answering critics of their massive transformation agenda. The exponential development in FCT is personified by the calculated determination of Bala to tackle the challenges headlong, irrespective of paucity of funds.
Just a few years down the road, Bala has delivered other major projects such as the Abuja Light rail and Abuja-Kaduna railway; multi-billion roads/bypasses/bridges; completion of works on Tanks 1 and 6 with 40,000 cubic centimeters water storage capacity; World Trade Centre, while others like Abuja Town Trade Centre; Abuja Millennium City Project; Abuja Film Village International etc are on-going.
Bala Mohammed has played crucial role in meeting the needs of the people and also the expectations of his principal at the Villa. An essential element to his extraordinary vision for the growth and expansion of FCT has been the untiring focus in building world-class infrastructure.
The investment initiatives of FCT Administration is expected to generate over 300,000 jobs; an inflow of over N1trillion investment to FCT; reduction of housing deficit by 20%; reduction of cost of rent/lease by 15%; increased funding to human capital development and enhanced security of lives and properties. With the right policy and a robust security network in place, FCT is reshaping business and redefining the African economy for a powerful launch on the global stage.
As it is often said, you don’t change a winning team mid-stream, it is highly imperative that conscious efforts be made to sustain Bala’s jaw-dropping achievements in FCT by allowing him to continue in office. In civilized nay development countries, performing public officers are not dropped whimsically or for the fun of it. They are allowed to carry out their revolutionary agenda to logical conclusion. So, Bala Mohammed should be allowed to continue to nurture the fruit of development that he has sown in FCT to blossom under his watch and guidance.
Ochela wrote from Abuja
