WIKE SHOULD PRIORITIZE THE POOR AREAS OF THE FCT

By

JESUTEGA ONOKPASA

I just saw a notice for the flag-off of road construction in highbrow neighbourhoods of Abuja by the Federal Capital Territory Administration, FCTA, but I think the FCT Minister, Governor Nyesom Wike, should not be concentrating on such areas as Maitama, Asokoro, Garki, Wuse and Gwarinpa.

These sections of the FCT are already pretty well developed.

Besides, the people who live in those places don’t like us, our President and our party very much, and most of them didn’t support us during the election – indeed many of them practiced heinous wickedness against Bola Tinubu, similar to what his ridiculous neighbours at Bourdillon Road, Ikoyi, did to him when they stabbed him in the back despite the fact that he had shown them love and protected their overpriced properties from being swallowed up by the Atlantic Ocean when he conceived the Eko Atlantic City as a buffer between the ravenous ocean and the city of Lagos.

Those who live in the posh parts of Abuja are my neighbours and friends, and I know them and their bad character and sense of entitlement very well, and I don’t think they will be supporting us any time soon, so let’s not bother to waste our time with them.

Moreover what has been done in these areas is good enough for now, so let them manage it as it is.

They are not the only ones who live in Abuja and in fact constitute a microscopic minority of the territory’s population.

In fact, at any given point in time, during working hours, at least, over 90% of the people you see in the city center commuted in from the outlying and still quite underdeveloped areas.

Therefore, Governor Wike should be concentrating on the outlying areas like Bwari, Gwagwalada, Abaji, Dutse, Deidei, Karu, Nyanya, Lokogoma etc, where the masses live and where the votes are.

There are already more than enough roads and flyovers all across the city center whereas there are numberless neighbourhoods, villages and towns in the suburbs and outlying areas that have next to no road network.

That is why many of the people in these areas abandoned our party and bought into the blatant lies and empty promises of Peter Obi’s sugarcoated tongue, indeed to the extent that when he saw the quantum of votes he had garnered in the territory, he was so surprised, he went totally bunkers and started talking utter nonsense about 25% in Abuja like a complete drunkard.

From a political standpoint and electoral point of view, the people who reside in such areas are far more important than the fat cats in the highbrow areas and therefore should be our top priority.

Thankfully, Governor Wike has already started quite well by carrying the long neglected indigenous people of Abuja along in his administration and should be similarly able to deploy his exemplary political sagacity towards carrying the equally long neglected residents of the outlying areas along, as well.

That is how to win the hearts and minds of the common people who are the ones who actually come out to vote.

While winning the FCT is by no means a must to become President, indeed as the Court of Appeal most luminously elucidated in its locus classicus delivered a few days ago, we must win it overwhelmingly next time around, if only for our pride and to teach Peter Obi that “Obi” is still the name of a little boy.

*Onokpasa, a lawyer, was a member of the All Progressives Congress, APC, Presidential Campaign Council, and writes from Abuja.