The Public and Private Development Centre (PPDC) has trained residents of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) on monitoring Federal Government projects in their various communities.
Onyekachi Chukwu, Senior Program Manager of PPDC said they are the program in order to improve residents’ participation in governance through monitoring projects in their communities and demanding improved service delivery.
“Currently we are running a project with support from Voice Global to empower community people in the FCT to see how they can improve their participation in governance through monitoring projects in their communities and also demanding for improved service delivery in their communities.
“Currently we are working in six communities across the Area Councils in Abuja, we are trying to educate the people in the community by showing them the different tools available to them to improve their participation in governance and to also help them have more accessibility to their representatives and to see how some of the challenges they are having in their communities like lack of schools, lack of basic health facilities, water, road, insecurity and others, to see how we can teach them what to do and how to reach out to some of their representatives,” he said.
He said so far, the residents are now aware of what they should do, as some have started taking steps to reach out to their representatives at the National assembly.
“So far so good, the communities are willing and it is also impressive to see that most of the communities in the FCT are actually aware of what they should do and some have gone as far as taking steps to reach their representatives.
“There is still a very big gap in the sense that there is very little or no government presence in some of these communities, considering that this is Abuja and one will actually think that they will be doing okay but you will be surprised that when you go to some of these communities, they are not even accessible,” Chukwu added.
Lamenting on the level of abandoned projects in the FCT, Dr Jamberlary Ray, from Buzumkure, Kuje Area Council of the FCT, said the road from Kuje to Abuja @30 gate has been contracted some few years back, he said the contractor came on site did a little work and disappeared.
He said the road connects four major communities (Buzumkure, Abuja @30, Peggi estate and Peggi Community).
“The communities teamed up, went to the FCT minister’s office on two occasions, even the Minister of State for FCT, Ramat Aliyu came to the community and promised that the road would be completed.
“Apart from that, a lot of radio programmes were carried out just to make sure that the contractor comes back on site but as I am speaking to you, no contractor has come back to the site. The road has become a trap that kidnappers use to kidnap people going to their various places of work.
“With the promise that they (PPDC) are giving us, maybe two heads will be better than one since we have tried in our own end, maybe if we team up together, it will bring out a result, that is my prayer,” he said.
Also, Reverend Thomas Bako, representing Yimi, Gwagwalada Area Council in the FCT said there are lots of contracts from the federal government that have been declared to be completed but they are not up to 50 per cent complete.
He said an example of such contracts is Kuje/Apo road which was declared completed but really not yet completed.
“We wrote letters to the Senator representing FCT at the National Assembly, Senator Philip Aduda, and the Minister of FCT, Mohammed Bello, we visited the Senator but we couldn’t see him, we sent another letter to him through courier services but up till today there was no response.
“There are many communities in Abuja that if you go there, you will have to ask if they are truly in Abuja because they have no access road.
“We are not happy, we are the most cheated people in Abuja because we didn’t vote for the minister. The president singlehandedly gave us a minister, and he is representing his own state, it is painful to us.
“I am very happy with this organization for what they are doing to give awareness to communities. If I go home today, I will sit up again, I will write letters and sit down with the community to write collectively.”
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