March 19, 2024
The Minister of the Federal Capital Territory, FCT, Abuja, Nyesom Wike, has requested the Senate to approve a security vote for the territory to address its security challenges.
Wike made this appeal while appearing before the Senate Committees on FCT and Area Councils to defend the N1.1 trillion budget of the Federal Capital Territory Administration, FCTA, for the 2024 fiscal year.
Abuja has recently experienced a surge in cases of kidnappings, armed robberies and killings.
Wike stated the importance of approving the security vote for the FCTA to enable security agencies to tackle threats promptly without bureaucratic delays or compromising sensitive security information.
Wike said, “If you recollect what we said in the Security Council meeting, I did say that in tackling the issue of insecurity, there are certain operations that we call covert operations and that even some people may not even know. But here in Abuja or FCT, no security man can be given N10,000.
“He has to apply. You have to take it to the permanent secretary, who will take it to the DFA (Director of Finance and Accounts) before the money will be released. Now, in that case, you don’t even know whether it is the permanent secretary or the DFA that is giving out information regarding the operation.
“There is no security vote in the FCT and so, I did present this when we discussed security issues. This is just to let you know, so you don’t forget that you did promise us that you would make sure that this time around, there would be a security vote to take care of some of these challenges.”
The minister also mentioned his success in renegotiating the Abuja light rail contract, saving $53 million by reducing the operations aspect of the contract from $128 million to $75 million.
He attributed the delays in public projects to inflated government contracts and the prudent use of Internally Generated Revenue, IGR, to fund projects while awaiting the release of main capital budgets to prevent unnecessary variations sought by contractors.
