Emmanuel Badejo September 8, 2023
Aformer presidential aspirant on the platform of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Chief Charles Ugwu, has said that President Bola Ahmed Tinubu made the right choice in assigning the portfolio of Federal Capital Territory (FCT) minister to the immediate past governor of Rivers State, Nyesom Wike.
He has therefore urged Nigerians to give massive support to the minister.
According to Ugwu, Nigerians, particularly, indigenes, workers and residents of the FCT needed a man like Wike to drive and deliver the capital city from all forms of encumbrances.
In a statement titled ‘Let Wike breathe’, which he personally signed and released to the media on Tuesday, Ugwu, an Abuja-based lawyer and businessman, said that given the exemplary development strides witnessed in Rivers under Wike, President Tinubu couldn’t have made a better choice in picking the former Governor to reenact his Rivers miracle in Abuja.
According to Ugwu, Tinubu had made a right choice in Wike’s appointment and portfolio, who he said has the courage to shape the capital city in line with its original master plan.
“Abuja needs a man like His Excellency, Barrister Nyesom Wike, who is courageous enough to walk his talk, to run its affairs at this point in time,” Ugwu declared, insisting that Wike needs the support of Nigerians to enable him focus on his work and reenact in Abuja his development miracle in Rivers, not the name-calling that seems to be the case now.
“FCT needs a man like Wike to maintain its decaying social infrastructure as well as add new ones so that wherever citizens live within the FCT, they will enjoy as much quality infrastructure as in the city centre.
“Politics apart, it is time for all of us to join hands to rebuild our nation thoroughly battered under the immediate past federal administration,” Ugwu emphasized.”
Ugwu defended Wike for his stance against illegal buildings and settlements in Abuja, adding that Nigerians must enthrone discipline in all spheres of life.
“Cities, towns, others are planned and built according to such plans so that people will not only enjoy the beauty of such planned cities and or towns, even countries as a whole, but also live in safety,” he observed.
“We are all witnesses to how floods, for instance, constantly ravage our cities and rural communities. This is in most part due to the haphazard erection of buildings in our cities, a lot of them blocking drainages. This must not be allowed to happen not only in Abuja but also in any other part of the country.
“People must be disciplined enough to do due diligence on lands they want to buy so they don’t get duped by unscrupulous speculators who dump illegal property on them only for them to build and see their property destroyed. If you do not follow the city’s master-plan and build haphazardly, why would your property not be demolished?”
He took umbrage at people throwing brickbats at Wike for sounding a note of warning on illegal structures, describing such vituperations as unfair and stemming from “undue partisanship which should have been put aside after the elections.”
“Politics apart, it is time for all of us to join hands to rebuild our nation thoroughly battered under the immediate past federal administration,” Ugwu emphasized.
