A pressure group, the Movement for Revolutionary Change (MRC) has described plans by the Federal Government to construct 1,500 houses Abuja to mark Nigerian centenary celebration as ‘a white elephant project’ that will not benefit the poor folks that make up 70 per cent of Nigeria’s population.

‘This is another misplaced priority by the President Jonathan administration. The centenary houses will be another mega structure that may add to the opulence of the FCT, but not solve its housing crises., said the MRC in a statement signed by its Coordinator, Babatope Babalobi.

The group wondered why the Federal Government is planning to built another ‘Tower of Babel’ in Abuja while edifices like the National Stadium Abuja constructed with over N60b few years, ago is presently overtaken by wild weeds while its structures are dilapidating’’

Apart from further displacing indigenes of the new locations where the houses are to be built, the new centenary houses will not be affordable to artisans and working class that dominate the city. Abuja presently has thousands of unoccupied houses built with looted funds, because their rents are scandalously high and unaffordable by the average resident of the city. We are afraid that these new centenary houses will be cornered by Nigeria’s wealthiest few known for its compulsive appetite to acquire properties through looted public funds.

Instead of constructing 1500 new houses in the FCT, urged the Jonathan administration to:

1. Provide basic infrastructural facilities like roads, water supply, sanitation, energy, and schools in small towns and several and slums that surround the FCT such as Kubwa, Abaji, Gwagwalada, Mabushi, Mpape, Kpaduma, Durumi 3 and Ruwan Fulani.

2. Embark on a comprehensive exercise to rehabilitate Federal Government Estates throughout Nigeria that are presently decaying; a case in this respect is Festac town Lagos.

3. Inventorise the various empty mansions that variously dot Abuja metropolis and acquire for public use, those purchased with ill gotten funds.

4. Ensure the FCT low income groups, working class, and middle class have access to housing loans and landed property to build houses by themselves within the FCT.

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