The Abuja Municipal Area Council may be proscribed and replaced with Abuja Metropolitan Management Council, if the National Assembly passes into law an Executive Bill for the purpose before it.

The Bill titled "An Act to Provide for the Establishment of the Abuja Metropolitan Management Council and Other Matters Connected Therewith, 2010" was forwarded to the National Assembly by President Goodluck Jonathan in January this year.

It seeks to establish "for the Federal Capital Territory Abuja, an Authority, to be known as the Abuja Metropolitan Management Council, which shall be responsible for the efficient and operation of Municipal Services within the FCT".

The Abuja Municipal Area Council is presently run as an Area Council by a Chairman, with a legislature made up of councilors, but the bill seeks to replace the Chairman and the body of councilors with a "Board of Directors".

The Board of Directors, according to the Bill, "shall consist the Minister, who shall be Chairman, Executive Secretary of the FCDA, who shall be the Vice Chairman, the coordinator who shall be a full time member of the Board and five other members appointed by the Minister, who shall be persons with cognate experience in environmental and or municipal matters" .

The board, if set up would however place its board members on part-time, "Other than the coordinator". The board members who would serve four years, would get their "remuneration", as "shall be determined by the Minister" of the FCT.

Part of the prayers of the Bill, is for the board, if created to appoint a Director General who shall oversee the activities of the departments of Parks and Recreation, Development Control, Facilities Maintenance and Management, Road Traffic Services, Urban Affairs and the functions and subdivisions of each of the departments.

The Bill may however, be unwittingly conferring draconian powers on the Office of the Minister, whom it seeks to among other powers, "to issue regulations prescribing additional departments for the Council or altering departments for the Council or altering the departments listed" .

If passed into law, this piece of legislation will become a product of the National Assembly nay the Federation, but empowering the Minister to alter or modify a prayer or a proposal granted as proposed by the National Assembly would be in breach of section 305 as amended by the National Assembly.