Posted by By Austine Odo on
Federal Capital Territory minister, Mallam Ahmed el-Rufai, has advised residents of the territory who have no meaningful means of livelihood to return to their home towns since there are no jobs for them.
Federal Capital Territory minister, Mallam Ahmed el-Rufai, has advised residents of the territory who have no meaningful means of livelihood to return to their home towns since there are no jobs for them.
Speaking with journalists in Abuja weekend, el-Rufai said the idea of Abuja was to build an inclusive city for both the rich and the poor, but not the jobless.
'If you don't have a concrete job, there is no need to come to Abuja. I advise the unemployed to go back to their villages because apart from the construction industry jobs which are not even very common now, we don't have jobs for them. Let them go back to their villages until we gradually become ready for them', he said. The minister said the over-glamourization of Abuja was causing a lot of problems, making everyone to want to come to the city when the opportunities are not actually there.
"We can't cope with the rate of influx. Abuja was not designed to be a commercial city but an administrative one, but it is now gradually becoming a commercial city. The satellite towns were not quite developed because nobody anticipated the influx. When Abuja started, there were doubts whether it was going to succeed", he said.
According to the minister, with the current rate of influx, the population of Abuja is expected to hit about eight million when the national population census is carried out and this he said, was not the plan of the original founders of the city.
He however noted that the Abuja project was not properly done in the first place because development was concentrated at the city centre without being extended to the satellite towns which has necessitated the gradual spread of development now.
The minister said about N100 million has so far been collected as deposits from civil servants interested in buying government houses.
He said some banks, including Zenith, Oceanic and Union Bank has agreed to fully finance any one who wants to own a house in Abuja but that it is slightly higher with them because of insurance underwriting arrangements.
El-Rufai dismissed the rumour that the EFCC was waiting to arrest any civil servant who is able to afford the prescribed ten percent deposit, saying the EFCC is rather focused at grand corruption and not those who want to buy government houses.
"We are selling 25,000 houses and I don't think the EFCC has the time to run after civil servants for this", he said.