Emma Ujah, Umoru Henry
12 September 2008
interview
THE Minister of the Federal Capital Territory stands shoulder-high in the nation's Federal Executive Council, FEC. This is because whoever occupies the office is, without doubt, considered close to the heart of the President in all administrations. Dr. Aliyu Modibo Umar, who prides himself as a journalist bestrides the FCT and chooses to run a government that is clearly different from his predecessor's, Mallam Nasir El-Rufai. In this interview with Vanguard, Dr Umar said he almost got caught in the hullabaloo generated by the clamour for the restoration of the Abuja Master Plan, but quickly decided to act in recognition of the fact that the people are the masters plan and should not be slaves to the Master Plan.
He also spoke of his focus in the administration of the FCT and stressed his commitment to providing quality services that would make Abuja a home to both the rich and the poor. He spoke to a team comprising the Abuja Bureau Chief, Emma Ujah, Umoru Henry, Luka Biniyat, Fidelis Ebu and Chris Ochayi. Excerpts:
What is the focus of your administration of the FCT?
I think the most important cardinal point for a public servant, who finds himself in this position, is service, service, service. Now, service in the sense that you are here to deliver on specific mandate given to you by your principal - in this case Mr President. Then also to continue with what the general public expects or residents of Abuja expect the city to be like. And so when we came in of course there was this hullabaloo of the Master Plan.
Master Plan! Master Plan!! Master Plan!!! I also fell into that same trap. My objective was restoration or upholding the master plan. But when I settled on the job, I realised that - yes the Master Plan is important, but Abuja is populated by human beings and that every human being has certain concerns about the nature of how the society should be for him or for his residence or whatsoever.
I realised that the real thing at that time was security of life and property. So we realised that was the immediate thing not only here in Abuja, but primarily even all over the country; people just were taken hostage by hoodlums, by gangsters, by criminals and yet you know 99 per cent of Nigerians are God fearing and what they want is peace.
And so I said in the Federal Capital Territory we will try our very best to make sure that we uphold and keep security as our priority and we have done that.
The statistics given to us by the police after our one and a half years in office, I specifically asked the police, I said okay you keep all the record of all criminal activities in the Territory; give me let me see my performance over this year; give me the same statistics from June 2006 to July 2007 and give me from July 2007 to July 2008, because we came in July 2007 and now we are one year in office.
The statistics is very interesting because it shows that the method is working. Getting closer to the police, trying to assist them in innovation, inviting others that could help to do this work. For instance, we invited Colonel John Madaki (rtd) who is very familiar with this terrain because he was Commander Brigade of Guard; they brought Ali Barau who is employing different type of approach but then we integrated him into our system and then we have a good police commissioner John Haruna.
Above all, I have the cooperation of the IG, so whatever I try to experiment here if it is metropolitan police, which has never been heard of, because you know the police is largely very jealous about their responsibility as a federal institution. And so, any devolution or anything that is seen as devolution of police authority you know they don't agree. But when we explained to the IG, he immediately agreed.
We decided to go beyond providing vehicles for the police. Yes, we bought them the first set of pick_up trucks so that they could pick more police and easily move their personnel.
But under the Metropolitan Police approach, we said we want them to go round the city. Even if you park in one place, for like one hour, the next three hours again they just patrol. Just the mere fact that your presence is being felt means a lot in crime control. As a result of all these strategies, the statistics that we got from the police showed a drastic fall in crime. Reported cases of armed robbery for instance, fell from 346 between 2006 to 2007 July to 134 in July 2008. We are not saying that there are no sporadic cases of crime here and there, but you can easily notice the drastic fall in the rate.
From 2006 June to 2007 July, we counted about (the police have on their record) 50 cases of armed robbery and thank God from July 2007 to July 2008 there has been none; zero incident of bank robbery.
There is something you mentioned which is of great interest to Abuja residents. You were almost caught in the hullabaloo of Master Plan of Abuja. What is your rating between Master Plan and service to the people?
Absolutely. What people expect in service. We are sort of being confronted with moral issues about the Federal Capital Territory and Abuja. I realised that we were gradually becoming servants of the Master Plan not masters of the Master Plan.
So, we were doing all type of things in the name of restoring the master plan; all types of illegalities; all types of rascalities you know all in the name of restoring Master Plan and then we could think, because of powerful propaganda, bring Nigerians into believing that Abuja should be sacrosanct. It is not possible, let's be realistic.
We are in a country of about 140 million people with almost 10 or 20 cities as big as Abuja and then with cities that have habits that have become sort of really incredible to change and these are the same Nigerians that if you are coming from Lagos for instance, they come to Abuja they don't need a visa and they can settle if they want, because they are Nigerians, they have the right to be there; if they are coming from Port Harcourt they don't need a visa; if they are coming from Kano or Kaduna or Bauchi or Nguru or Maiduguri we have all that gamut and then overnight you just want them to be slave of the master plan.
It is not possible; it takes persuasion, it takes orientation; yes we too started demolition because when I came newly I was tagged 'Minister with human face', I appreciate that but over time you also have to do what is right. You realise that yes I have human face, but people should not take it for granted; that was why when we moved into Gosha, we said, okay you guys that decided to come back here and build illegally, you know during the last administration you were demolished and you accepted your fate.
Now that we came and we want to work with you and follow the due process of law you just want to come back all happy. And we went back again and demolished the illegal structures, but with a little difference.
If you see the last exercise we did, we followed exactly what the Land Use Act or the law on urban development says. It says you have to give someone who has erected anything illegally certain amount of time and notice and I even went a step further and I told my Development Control 'you must publish this in at least three national newspapers so that people out there will know and give them the two weeks required' and that was the same thing we did in Gosha.
Even though we didn't advertise it, we did it informally, we gave them the two weeks notice; they wrote a letter appealing to me to give them one month additional time of grace; I cut it down to two weeks so they had four weeks; and when our people went to remove them they pleaded that they were not ready and then they gave additional two weeks. So, all-in-all they had six weeks to vacate that place. In between I have that feeling that they were up to something.
After the six weeks they were trying to perfect a move to take us to court to sort of get an injunction. Thank God, because since we came we have been trying to work with all segments. We sensitised the judiciary about the processes and the judge told me when the case came (later he was telling me) he asked them where are your titles? Before this time a judge will just give them the injunction and then look at the papers later, but this time the judge because we have sensitised them and informed them we are in a very precarious position that they have to work with us.
He asked them 'let me see your titles', and they didn't have any; he said do you have customary right? They don't have any. So, that was why he just threw out the case and said you don't have a claim over this. What we are saying is that yes, you can go ahead to restore the master plan or maintain it, but you must do it with utmost sense of responsibility, you know with understanding the sociological set up of our country.
For instance you look at someone that is selling corn - a girl or a woman with a baby on her back carrying a load of maize selling it and you want to chase her with a whip.
Then I told my staff and say listen, what we can do is tell her please, after she sells her corn and people throw away the husks let her remove it, because it is very painful when other Nigerians are trying to survive on N10 a day; an old woman that is doing something to survive and here you are living in a big beautiful house with expensive cars, wearing expensive cloths and everything and you want a beautiful place for the elites, because you don't want the elites to criticise you that Abuja is turning into a gutter.
What about other Nigerians? So, what we are doing with our team is that yes, if there is a way out even with these so called illegal settlers, I have been challenging my Chief-of-Staff, I have been challenging the FCDA staff, the engineers and say anytime we feel that some people have done something illegal, take for instance Lugbe.
I have stopped them from demolishing Lugbe. Let's look at all the options, the people that are settling in Lugbe illegally, yes and some of them may even have one paper or another; what is the purpose of the land in the first place? Now they are working on it. I say if it is like say for instance you come back to me and you say it is housing estate, then we will give it to them to build houses.
Then the person that is sitting in Lagos or in Benin with the title we will say sorry we will give you another one because if for instance (interjection...that's to say you're being proactive?) Exactly, we are trying to make sure that we are also vigilant about encroachment of other lands, because if we are vigilant from day one, we can stop it.
Today you know you start seeing one hamlet you go and remove it, it will not recuperate, but if you wait until after 10 years, people have settled, someone has even been born there and then you come and demolish them and then the purpose of that place is not that it is a sewage line or it is utility place or those essential things that nothing you can do about but to move people.
Because if they say, okay this is where the water is going to pass, it will pass through here and you have to dig the pipe here, it is understandable. And even if you explain to people to say look you people are sitting on a flood plane they will know or you can move and even if they refuse if you move them you know you are justified.
But in the first place they are sitting in a place that is designated as housing. The real challenge for you as an officer is to design it for them based on their income and you can say Mr A, B, C, their income is very low and Abuja must maintain its beauty and standard so let's try and design something for them that is only like say less than a N1 million and then of course they cannot afford all these fancy roofing sheets, but let's do it in a way that they will still do it with corrugated iron sheet.
And because we want to maintain the beauty of Abuja you give them a building prototype.
If they cannot afford cement for instance, because we have discovered that to be honest with you, when we did our calculation, if you are talking about housing for the low income, no one can afford or half of the people we are talking about cannot afford a house of N1 million, they cannot.
So, we say okay, let's assume, let's work with the figure like N500,000 for one bedroom. What will it take, of course if you are going to use cement it won't work because cement is expensive. If you use, for instance, red bricks or other forms which our experts are working with the Ministry of Housing experts and other experts with private developers to provide, then we may reach a stage where we can sell a house for less than a N1m.
A lot of people can afford it. And then of course you can't come to Abuja and just want to live and earn anything, that is why we are getting into areas where we can create wealth and prosperity.
Outside of trying to see how you could accommodate people who have already contravened the Master Plan, what original plan do you have to make sure that you provide massive housing for Abuja residents?
Well you know its is not possible to say that government will sit here and decide and say massive housing for people; the private sector has to come in. What we are trying to do is to say these are parcels of land, please you know we are charging next to nothing for it, go build mass housing. You know it has not been done in FCT before and I don't know maybe the old timers will tell you, but I think I am the first one that created the housing office.
About two weeks ago or three weeks ago I decided, because of monumental importance of the sector, and created a Housing Unit under the Minister's office headed by a director and a team and I said they should do an inventory of all the mass housing or housing issues and they should go and work with Ministry of Housing and Environment and any international body that wants to come and help us to create and even maintain standard.
Yesterday (Sunday) we met with the director and gave him the marching orders and said he should go in all those mass houses estate, look at even the standard, because some of them are even substandard because of lack of supervision and regulation.
But the real onus rests on the private sector; we have to have people come in here because in the Federal Capital Territory we have our mandate.
Our primary mandate, let me tell you, is not really building houses; our primary mandate is doing infrastructure that is why FCDA was created.
Federal Capital Development Authority provides primary infrastructure, provides roads, provides water, provides electricity, makes sure people have access to their lands so that they can build. But it has never been the mandate of the Federal Capital Territory to say build houses so people can stay.
I am appealing through your medium to Nigerians that we have to change this our attitude particularly with regards to Abuja, that Abuja can take care of housing needs of everybody because 99 per cent of houses in Abuja are privately owned; even the one by the elites 99 per cent are privately owned; now you can even 100 per cent because of the sale of the government houses. So, we are really not in the business of building, but we are in the business of facilitation, giving the developer the enabling environment.
Now if you ask a developer of mass housing to go do road, to do water, to do the electricity then of course the cost has to go up, but if government, as we are doing, say, open up Mabuchi or open up Katampe or open up Idu, Gwagwa or Karimo give it a proper layout, make sure you know where water is going through, make sure that you have enough drainage, make sure there are sewages to be connected that they don't use latrine or something like that so that everything is technically done, make sure that waste is not created, then you are creating enabling environment.
But now my brother, all that will continue to be looked at, where massive investment is going to come in housing; and that is if Abuja also moves from being a civil service city.
It has to be a city that has production or other types of enterprises that bring money to people because if it is those civil service or other government workers then they only depend on their salary and they only do others service, but if you say for instance you have 100 industries - small and big - and you have other service industries, hotels, then better.
That is why we are trying to develop the Business District because right now the biggest obstacle for this business coming in is lack of land, suitable land. All the land that they were supposed to occupy had been allocated and people are holding on to them, speculating with them because everyone knows around the world the real vibrant area of any major city is the down town business district; that is where you have all the offices and then business men will bring their capital and open a Five Star hotel.
So even if you don't do anything, if Abuja becomes a conference city, if Abuja only becomes major destination because we are friendly, because we are hospitable, because the climate is wonderful, because security is good- internally, not even talking about people coming from abroad; if you are tired of hustling and bustling of Lagos, you fly in here with your family for a period of three or four days, just go into a beautiful hotel, stay and then go back in the morning.
Everything now will increase because the hotel will require food, somebody has to give the chicken, somebody has to give the eggs, somebody has to provide the juices, somebody has to provide water, somebody has to clean the beds, somebody has to do the laundry- it's a chain effect and then you create wealth.
But now if you just keep insisting that yes government has to provide houses because someone in the ministry of so, so and so... they are level 13 officers living in Mararaba and therefore government should give them house; government already is very clear about that policy.
Government has sold all public houses and therefore build in your housing requirements or needs within your salary and that is not what we have not been talking about that people believe that government has shirked its responsibility of providing houses, but if you ask any worker they will tell you they gave us housing subsidy on top of their salary.
When are the contractors going to site on the metro line and the boulevard?
The Railway Project is very dear to our hearts. It will be 145 kilometers of rail track which has been envisaged by the last administration. It had entered into a sort of understanding or agreement with the Chinese, the CCECC to do it at $800 million (Eight hundred million US dollars) which is about N100 billion.
Now when we came we say the only thing we can even provide for them in the budget was like N1bn and I told my staff and I said at this rate we will find the railway in Abuja for N1bn and we have a bill of N100bn it is going to take us 100 years to do this railway or to pay off. So, what are the options?
Then we started talking even we reported to Mr. President and we said okay let's look and see if there are people out there that are interested; few showed up so far and have even indicated willingness to review the magnitude of the contract or the quantum or the cost and one entrepreneur who is willing to said if it is not more than N40bn - N50bn he is willing to go into it but what are we FCT going to give him to make sure he gets his returns on time because these days if you put your money in the stock exchange you know you get better returns than to wait till a long time.
It's like that. We have been thinking and even when we looked at the available land on the corridor of rail tracks and then we can give the entrepreneur in addition to all the stations, so they can do supermarkets there, they can even do, if there are good places, housing, they can do offices so that they can build in all these and right now that is where we are.
We are doing a census of all the available land along the rail tracks and then we will make it available to the potential investor, because you know there is no way the investor is going to put in the best in terms of N200 or N100 ticket sales. It's not possible. So, he or she has to get other sources of making money to keep that investment.
Thank God this morning my Secretary of Transportation, Segun Awolowo, came and told me that other potential investors that are also seriously interested in addition to what the Chinese and our consultants have been working with us. I even challenged him and said, Segun why don't we get quick- wins?
Do a re-appraisal either from the X-axis going out like from Mandala or Kubwa all the way to town passing Kubwa, passing all those very heavy traffic areas and when I went out one time with my engineers and I looked out and I said why can't we build in the middle of the road and they told me no it's the drainage.
And I was even telling Segun to go back and invite our consultants take a drive on the Kubwa road let's see how we can allow the drainage go under the train? Because the advantage of it is that we don't need another bridge.
You know you can use the existing infrastructure, so you just need to fortify them. I think it's a good challenge and engineering know-how instead of clearing the bush and other areas and then building a rail track or something that is extremely expensive. But in the middle if we can have even just that for now and then we see what will happen along the Nyanya road, then hopefully if there is enough investors who can take over the city or the one that will go through the airport.
So we are extremely working on that one, but the real truth of the matter is money. There is no money; we don't have money to put in there and we are trying to see that as much as possible private enterprise can come into it and if they do so they themselves would have to really examine how much they are going to make in profit to recoup their investment in time.
On the boulevard, how many plots of land actually this boulevard is going to be built on and when is it starting?
Okay, no plot, no house will give way for the boulevard. No building is on the boulevard on the road, but by the side you do have the road. There was time when we began to explain to people when they were saying that the NNPC building would be demolished. How can that be? Are we mad? After all the NNPC building conformed exactly to the standard of boulevard.
So even the second building, by the time we finish, all we are saying is that the economists will even move them out because they will either enter into partnership with people who want to build high rises. Because the concept of the boulevard we have is that all the buildings will not be less than maybe fifteen floors and will go up to thirty five floors, okay.
So it will even be a waste for some people who own building there to continue with three_story building on the boulevard areas. And let me explain to you the concept of boulevard, this we have two major roads, which we are really, really contemplating of naming right away, Zuma and Aso boulevards. Zuma meaning the one going towards Airport and the one coming back is the Aso. Zuma and Aso Boulevard.
You know when you are coming from the Eagle Square, take for instance you continue, you continue, you are walking through the bush by the Head of Service office is where there are those lanes, three lanes up to the fence of the Eagle Square and from the other side, by the Secretary to the Government of the Federation (SGF) side you have the three lanes, and they terminate at Ahmadu Bello.
Now when you cross, that's is where we are supposed to have our National Arcade and National Mall, with the National Arcade, we have put something for it in the budget this year. We are going to do it. Then the National mall, we will continuously try and fund it because that is just a recreational area, like a town square or town mall, and then ending into the Millennium tower, which was awarded.
And that is why I found it fraudulent with our countrymen and women, they forget easily. It was awarded at N53 billion; just one single building and now we are talking about boulevard that will traverse the whole Central Business District and we are even trying to raise the money independent of government.
But here is a project that is a good project to be honest with you, but have been funded and nobody questioned it in the past. Nobody, because of course, you know the propaganda that people were using was good. So they never allow anybody to even debate.
But ours, they just, you know, people just bringing all these falsehoods. We didn't say we are going to revoke, because initially we even thought how we are going to; even the revocation was unnecessary. We will just go ahead, meet with all the people who owned and tell them what the law had allowed you to do and the law allowed the Minister of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) to change the levy rate on any land after due consultations for major reasons.
And now we have a major reason, we say okay, this is a prime land that will house all the major businesses and financial sectors and legal or whatever and therefore we are going to change the rate from 2,000 or 4,000 per square meter to about 50,000 to 60,000 per square meter. And let me tell you, to date, we have almost 100 expressions of interest in the boulevard project without advertising for it.
Yes, and if I can give you the profile of people that have being on us, the corporate entity, Shell has come two to three times, they have written us. Globacom, MTN, these are corporate entities. Some already have their land there. Like Globacom has its land and they are willing to pay and even NNPC, when I spoke with the GMD, he said the building is ready.
What we said is that they will not pay fresh charges but they pay what the Land Use Act provides. It said you could charge betterment fee because you are improving the area. And it is that money now that we will use to pay for the construction of the roads. Even individuals who own plots with smaller companies have been coming to me that they are ready to pay. It is good I gather the volume until I get the right instrument.
We have sensitised the various interests, the next point of call for us would be to sensitise the National Assembly. We want to take the whole plan to the members of the National Assembly, particularly the leadership and show them this is what we have done; this is the basis we are working from.
You know that even one thing that has been worrying me has been cleared by the law, because I have been worried about the fact that if I collect this money to build the boulevard, how, if, for instance the National Assembly decides to put it in the treasury and then say appropriate it and then they decide to put it somewhere after I have already collected the money for the purpose.
But thank God, the National Assembly passed the Infrastructure Concession Regulatory Commission (ICRC) law which under Section 9 allows for domiciliation of such funds for specific purpose of the project. So, to give you the timeline of when we envisaged, we have been working step by step and every Wednesday afternoon we meet since the time we muted the idea.
We have Boulevard Committee, which I am the Chairman, we meet and if I am not there, they still meet under the chairmanship of one of the senior officers. We are hoping that next Wednesday we are going back to the Federal Executive Council (FEC) to award the contract to the consultancy services. That will now be the last time that I will go seeking permission for anything from the Federal Executive Council, because we said since we have not raised the money initially lets have this money and we requested for N250 million.
We requested actually for N500 million but the National Assembly reduced it to N250 million. And we have now gotten the N250 million and we advertised for expression of interest and the engineering firm to do the engineering design. And we have gotten one and we want to take the memo to the National Executive Council by God's grace next Wednesday.
Once we get it we award it the designs will be ready in two months and then we will go for tender for the contractor. And within those two months we will see how much we will raise, because I am saying we don't have to raise the whole money because to make it easier for people that own the property on the boulevard area if they are willing to retain their property.
If they of their own volition say we cannot afford to pay this rent, then I have an option for them. I am going to eject them and give them another piece of land. But if they are willing to pay, all we wanted to propose is if they can pay two or three installments.
We are not going to make it hard on people, because since the contract is going to last for about maybe two to three years, so in two or three installments, if for instance you are supposed to pay N1 billion, then every installment you have to pay N300 million. And I am telling you that if I wanted to collect money by now I would have had almost N10 billion in the accounts of the boulevard.
We understand your administration wants to establish City University in Abuja, what exactly is your motivating factor?
The Abuja City University is going to fill this vacuum that already we have in our country of postgraduate training, or more executive type of training. It is not envisaged to be an undergraduate or bachelors degree awarding institution. We believe that right now what we need is instead of running for short courses to Harvard two weeks to go and study Sustainable Development or Management that we should do it here and collaborate with people at Harvard.
That is our vision. I am sure I will try and get UCLA to come and collaborate with this City University. And I am proud to initiate it. But now we want to create that so that all these exodus, all these monies that we pay, thirty thousand dollars, for training abroad.
We will do a befitting institution here inside the city of Abuja with all the facilities and then in affiliation with these world class universities which the steering committee wants to recommend and will send in their best occasionally and then we pay them. They will come and spend two weeks here in Abuja, so then you can have different people coming and studying in the environment because it is a non-residential university.
And we believe the private sector will also sustain this endeavour because all I'm saying is that the Federal Capital Territory is just going to take nothing more than 20% equity. All the 80% ownership of the university should belong to other entities and I am pretty sure the steering committee is going to recommend how we are going to raise this money. But initially we will put the land as one of our equities, we will put whatever money we have so that we have take off. And that will also stop undue interference.
And you know through the private sector, two, three individuals will rise up and build a university for instance but two, three individuals will build first class secondary, we believe also we are in position to really spearhead this kind of institution that will provide executive study.
We want to focus on specific areas of needs. You know, why don't you bring one renowned journalist for three days to the city university and people will buy forms and participate. And I am hoping that through the facilities of the university, we can even have a small hotel around, just like when you go to these institutions abroad, you see small hotels around the campuses. So that's what we want and I am praying that it will succeed.
We are supposed to have six districts, now we are in the third districts. What is your plan for the forth district?
In the Federal Capital Territory, we are supposed to have 60 Districts. And when we say district we are talking about places like Maitama, or Wuse or Garki. Today, in 32 years of Abuja, we have only done six districts. I think only six districts have full infrastructures.
You can say they are complete, namely, Asokoro, Maitama, Wuse, Garki I and II, and Wuse II. So all the other sectors here, Utako, Jabi, all the other sectors here are attaining different percentages of completion.
But then you have several others that are yet to be completed. But what is very peculiar is that over the years, up to phase three, the six districts are all in phase one. Phase two is the Utako, Jabi, Katampe right, and then phase three is some parts of Jabi, Gwarinpa or something like that.
Up to phase three, all the land has been allocated. And if we say phase one has six districts, then you can imagine phase two has about eight or ten districts. Phase three has another eight or twelve districts. So you can imagine, though the last administration had admitted that they allocated 47, 000 plots of land.
And of course they are not in phase one because the phase one has been developed. And that has compounded our problems because that is another place that we are trying to at least, my administration we want to explore another experiment to see if we can build one district by changing the levy just like we have changed the levy for the boulevard.
And create the same account that has been for instance, ICRC, to see. And that's why I asked my Engineering Department and my Chief of Staff who are spearheading that to determine how much really does it cost us at the moment to build a district infrastructure.
They came out with about N10, 000 per square meter to put district infrastructure.
If you take for instance to open like now the Katampe extension, that infrastructure is going on, it will cost the government N10, 000 per square meter. And the owner of the plot is paying only N2, 000 per square meter.
So in the real sense the government is subsidizing him or her about N8, 000. But I have done a sample, I have spoken to people and said, if you own a plot of land, say in Mabuchi and you desperately want to build and you are told that instead of paying N2, 000, you should pay over N10, 000 per square meter, and suppose you own a plot of land with 1,000 square meters, that's N10 million. Most people that I have spoken to so far are saying they are willing to pay.
Because if they are guaranteed that after a eighteen months or twenty months they will have infrastructure, they are ready to pay because right now even without infrastructure some of the lands cost more than that. Imagine if you want to develop a property to rent or to sell you are deepening your investment. So we are going to experiment with one district to see.
This way do we want the rich and poor to co-habit in same Districts.
To be honest with you, what my dream is is that you don't keep pushing the low income to one side. The best town planning in my view (even though I am not a town planner) is to integrate everybody, so that in Maitama for instance, you just don't have all the rich men living there.
You can do small flats; they can be high_rise, one bedroom. You may say the driver for instance or the washmen or the mai_guard can have a house there too and he can call his own _ he is not a tenant.
It is his own. He owns a house in Maitama. It might not be a mansion but it his house _ one bedroom. And the same thing even with other districts, we want to create a space and say yes, this one is only for mass housing for low_income earners, and then they have to be done nicely.
It is the responsibility of the government to provide infrastructures but there is no road in some estates like FHA Lugbe, what is your defence?
Because they built illegally, they built in places that were not planned. The federal housing has some lands, but don't forget the Federal Housing was not under the Federal Capital Territory. Lugbe was built under the regime of Late General Sani Abacha when General Jeremiah Useni was the FCT Minister. Lugbe and Gwarinpa, these were places that were taken, built and abandoned.
Now they have become part of the city of Abuja. But I can guarantee you the FCT was not even consulted. Because if FCT was consulted properly by the FHA, they would have told them, no, don't go there.
Lets do it here, or lets do even this plan even this plan that I was talking about, integration than to say this one is the section for the masses. Lets just integrate the masses and the rich, everybody has his own title and they are still living in the same area, in the same structures that have high standard. So I know, whenever you talk to and I can see the anxieties in the faces of my friends, because a lot of my friends live in Lugbe (general laughter).
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