As Wike prepares for May 29

Three years ago, I wrote a piece which I titled Capitol of the Dank, Dark, Dirty and Dangerous. It was my personal assessment of notable, multisectoral degeneration in Abuja, Nigeria’s capital city, which is supposed to be Africa’s showpiece to the world. Muhammadu Buhari was President within the period and Mohammed Bello, Minister of the Federal Capital Territory Administration, (FCTA). Permanent power outages in the territory foisted a regime of disturbing darkness. Streets, roads, boulevards, closes were strewn with filth and garbage, gifting parts of the territory unusual stench and smell. Muggers reigned unchecked around and about the city, emerging from unknown hideouts to harass drivers at traffic lights fleecing them of valuables, particularly at nightfall. They targeted telephones and similar devices and would simply disappear into the wombs of darkening night. Should your vehicle malfunction in sections of the capital area especially in lonely stretches, criminals lurking in unsuspecting crevices sprang out to attack innocent victims and fleece them of their belongings.

The quantum vandalism visited on multibillion naira by scroungers better known in these parts as baba’n bola, “kings of dump sites,” equally evoked concern. Prized metal covers of service ducts on our street were wilfully stolen by these vagrants, a practice which still subsists. The gaping holes continue to leave commuters at the mercy of road crashes. Metal poles bearing illumination lights were not spared. They ended up as scraps in panteka markets where they are traded at our collective expense. Not forgetting the wholesale recalibration of the otherwise eye-catching aesthetics of Abuja, into a functional ranch by Fulani herders. Herds of cattle were on daily excursions across the city till today. They enjoyed primary “right of way,” over and above commuters, who were also doomed to contend with the lacquer of cattle dung, routinely splashed on city ways. Such was the basal levels to which our beautiful Abuja was dragged in that dispensation.

Today, the most casual of Abuja residents or fleeting guests would not but notice ongoing works in the city’s landscape. Road construction sites buzz with activity in select locations, even as concrete bridges are being launched across major roads. These will facilitate better commuter experiences for road users in the immediate future. Structures are sprouting in certain zones in the city and have been activated as public conveniences. The initiative aims to address a critical, probable omission in the Abuja masterplan. The absence of dedicated spaces as car parks across Abuja which has fuelled illegal loading bays across the city is another omission which will have to be creatively addressed. Kerbs and stone-pitching are being introduced in certain areas of the city’s road networks, even as hedges are being built around designated spaces for potential greening, in certain areas.

FCT Minister, Nyesom Wike without doubt, brought with him to his present brief, the dynamism which characterised his years as Governor of the oil-blessed Rivers State. His profile evidently accentuated public expectations when he was named chaperone of the FCT by President Bola Tinubu in August 2023. It needs no restating that Wike covets the limelight. Many would be familiar with his regular live telecast “state of the nation’s interviews” which he periodically hosts. Reminds of Fela Anikulapo-Kuti’s yabis sessions at his famous performance arena, the Shrine, in the good old Lagos. Wike sits on a grand sofa, either in the comfort of his living room, or in the breezy greenery of the lawns in his house, surrounded by a number of journalists. He hurls invectives at his adversaries, real or imagined, some of which actually border on libel and slander, in the name of discussing Nigerian politics.

As Governor of Rivers State, Wike routinely drew up timetables for the formal inauguration of projects executed by his administration. Such programmes often stretched into several days and weeks. He invited statesmen and political bigwigs sometimes across party lines to commission projects. Every such event was telecast real time on the terrestrial platforms of multiple television stations for global viewership. He replicated the practice when he got the President, on the first anniversary of his inauguration in May 2024, to perform the ceremonial tape-cutting of some projects across the capital city.

Yet another Democracy Day is just weeks away. Wike has been moving around the FCT with his very grandiose convoy of sleek automobiles, which could be misconstrued as being in direct contest with that of the President, in recent weeks. The taste of our leaders for extravagant consumption and obscene exhibitionism, is incompatible with our aggregate, pitiably low developmental indices on many counts. The FCT Minister is readying some projects executed by his ministry for commissioning by President Tinubu, come May 29, 2025. Predictably, as part of the preparations, select roads and avenues will wear fresh markings. Flags and buntings will be hoisted around Abuja. Laudable as these are, one is duty-bound to call the attention of the FCT helmsman to subsisting and worrying developments in Abuja as we speak. We shouldn’t be gloss-dressing the exterior of a structure, which indeed is internally decrepit and degenerate. From what one sees as one commutes around and across the city, the level of cleanliness and sanitary condition of Abuja has dropped remarkably.

Garbage receptacles in various neighborhoods overflow, Abuja streets strewn with cellophane sachets, plastic bags and all manner of debris. Instances are noticeable even within the city centre. While this is bad enough during weekdays when few garbage trucks are sighted in parts of Abuja, it is indeed worse at the weekends. There has been a suggestion that since Minister Wike is traditionally engrossed with politicking in Rivers State at the weekends, and more recently in neighbouring Bayelsa State, the absence of governance those few days of minimum governance should be overlooked. Open and covered drains are clogged by sand, silt and sundry waste. Sewers have ruptured in several districts and zones, streaming to streets, assailing the nostrils and impairing the health of residents. Despite recent recourse to solar lighting, illumination of the city remains very poor. Dark, uncertain stretches can even be noticed on the major gateway into Abuja, the airport road.

Criminal activities including car theft, kidnapping and killings, hitherto rarities in the FCT, have become recurrent. It must have embarrassed the Office of the National Adviser, Nuhu Ribadu to no end, that a truck in the inventory of his office was stolen on the streets of Abuja earlier this month, minutes after its occupant stepped out to observe the juma’at service, Friday April 12, 2025! The clear absence of defined, structured parking areas for the ever growing city, the unavailability of structured “pick and drop” zones for public transportation contributes tremendously to avoidable traffic snarls in the capital. This reality needs to be confronted with every ingenuity to impact the functional showpiece we envision of Abuja.

Structures in public schools in Abuja are mostly substandard, unfit for teaching and learning. It would seem in many instances, that the builders of the primordial structures, shortchanged the system on account of the unpardonably shoddy jobs they executed. The buildings have since unravelled and become largely inimical to habitation and studying. With the onset of the rains, structures in many such institutions could be fundamentally affected and students displaced in instances. And there seems to be no resource provision for school heads to take initiative for palliative repairs remediation. The red-tapism en route such good intentions, can only be imagined.

For all the verve and boisterousness with which Wike settled into his job, it was expected that the menace, the eyesore constituted by herds of cattle straddling arrogantly through the capital, popularised during the Muhammadu Buhari presidency, would by now have been decisively addressed. Camels and horses are also on free range in parts of Abuja. Riding in the same car with a top officer friend who works in the security services, he posed the question to me: “I’ve honestly tried to understand this subsisting trend. Is it that the quality of vegetation consumed by cattle in the city is better than what is obtainable on the outskirts? I just don’t understand,” he said rhetorically.

Just a fortnight ago, the Mayor of Kumasi, a Ghanaian city, Richard Ofori-Agyemang Boadi, warned cattle rearers to confine their animals, or risk losing them. His call has received applause even from cattle businessmen. Kumasi, by the way is not the capital city of Ghana. On account of our failures and frailties, our country indeed has become laughing stock amongst brother countries. The Ghanaian press profiles our country as a “big for nothing giant of Africa,” whose nationals continue to flee their country in bids to find fulfilment elsewhere. Our failure in the simple task of maintaining the seat of government in our country questions our seriousness as a country. Where then lies our capacity to interrogate the bigger issues of insecurity, inflation and economic hardship and the free fall of our currency? Abuja which used to be Africa’s prime conference destination during the Olusegun Obasanjo/Atiku Abubakar government, has long lost its place. Sandton, Johannesburg in South Africa; Cairo in Egypt; Nairobi in Kenya, and even Kigali in Rwanda have since torpedoed our extant self-aggrandisement.

The papering and surfacing of parts of the FCT nonetheless, Wike still has a lot to chew on his plate. When will the FCTA install CCTV cameras across the territory, beginning from the city? Babajide Sanwo-Olu’s Lagos State, has led the way. The deployment of such simple technology is imperative for policing and securing of the seat of federal administration. When will Wike’s FCTA procure and install waste processing technology and equipment, to be deployed in designated parts of the territory? Modern waste management systems encourage the sustainable conversion of waste to wealth. When will areas contiguous to the concentric circle of the capital city, receive desired attention? When will the rocky Mpape district, and sub-urban communities like Lokogoma, Apo-Tyafi, Okanje, Kabusa, Pyakassa, Kuje, Gaube, Byazin, Bwari, Nyanya, and similar communities, catch a whiff of infrastructural modernity? These are strands of the FCT which bear mammoth population burdens and deserve life-improving facilities and amenities. These and several other districts and departments of the FCT behemoth, deserve and eagerly await Wike’s attention.

Olusunle, PhD, Fellow of the Association of Nigerian Authors, (FANA), is an Adjunct Professor of Creative Writing at the University of Abuja.