Worried with the increasing rate of distortion of the Abuja Master Plan and the outright vandalisation of the city’s infrastructure, the Federal Capital Development Authority (FCDA) has sought for collaboration with the Nigerian Institution of Civil Engineers (NICE) to check the menace.

The Executive Secretary of the FCDA, Engr. Umar Gambo Jibrin made the request when he led the Management Team of the Authority on a courtesy visit to the National Chairman of NICE, Engr. Aishatu A. Umar in her office at Labour House, Abuja, Wednesday

The Executive Secretary informed Engr. Aishatu and her Executive members that the visit was meant to intimate them about the activities of the FCDA. He said by virtue of Decree 6 of February 1976 which created the FCDA, it was saddled with the mandate to plan and develop infrastructure in the city and provide services that would make lives meaningful to the residents. “We have done this over the years and we are doing it; we keep on improving”, he stated.

He noted that “all the facilities and infrastructure that we have put in place, some of it are being vandalized, some of it are being distorted. People are doing what they ought not to do. The readily one that comes to mind is when we had the unfortunate flooding incident in the raining period of the year. A lot of it has to do with people who have run fowl of our Master Plan provisions, putting up structures and things that are not supposed to be in the water and river courses and that alone has really impinged on the environmental setting in the city to the level that we are not very happy about”.

Continuing, the Executive Secretary said, “I want your body to really help us in the area of environmental awareness so that people will know that there is so much the Administration of the Federal Capital Territory is doing to make sure that in making Abuja The City We Need as we have it in our Urban Agenda Programme under the UN Habitat Green, we always try to make sure we are working to get Abuja to be a green city that will encourage people to help to remedy some of the things that make the entire place environmentally unfriendly and not very good.”

He observed that the development of Abuja has been quite challenging due to inadequate funding and the influx of people into the city with its attendant effect of over-stretched infrastructure, he however expressed optimism that with the 2020 budget, the menace of flooding would be ameliorated.

He said the FCDA was available and ready to partner with genuine investors in the provision of infrastructure such as the management of Gosa Landfill Site and the construction of the 10-lane Wasa-Gwagwalada section of the Outer Southern Expressway on Public—Private-Partnership (PPP) basis.

While speaking, the National Chairman of NICE, Engr. Aishatu Aliyu Umar expressed the readiness of her Institution to partner with the FCDA as requested by the Executive Secretary, assuring that come January 2020, she would constitute a special committee that would liase with the relevant department of the FCDA to actualize the plan

Engr. Aishatu disclosed that her Institution had initiated an Annual Public Lecture in the Executive Secretary’s name to hold on 16th April every year. She said the maiden edition would hold next year. She expatiated that the decision to initiate the Annual Public Lecture was in recognition and appreciation of the Executive Secretary’s numerous and laudable contributions to the Engineering profession, particularly, her Institution.

Pix shows Executive Secretary, FCDA, Engr. Umar Gambo Jibrin and the National Chairman, Nigerian Institution of Civil Engineers (NICE), Engr. Aishatu A. Umar, when the Executive Secretary paid a courtesy visit to NICE Headquarters, Abuja.