The FCT Minister, Nyesom Wike, has berated the chairman of the Abuja Municipal Area Council (AMAC), Christopher Maikalangu, for naming major roads and streets in the Abuja city centre after private citizens without prior authorisation.
Speaking on Wednesday while flagging off the construction of road networks in the Guzape District, a project that extends into the AIT neighbourhoods of the Asokoro cadastral zone, the Minister warned the AMAC chairman to stop naming streets and roads he did repair or build after people he collected money from .
Speaking during the ceremony, the minister warned that the practice by the council authority, led by Maikalangu, of assigning names of private individuals to roads built and funded by the FCT Administration in the city centre is no longer acceptable.
He clarified that street names should be reserved for individuals who have made significant contributions to the nation or the FCT to properly immortalise them.
He advised that naming streets after individuals who pay a fee to the area council should be restricted to satellite towns where the council provides the infrastructure.
Wike firmly stated: “We cannot be doing roads and even infrastructure, and you wake up in the morning, I don’t know who writes to you, before I wake up, you name the street and the roads that we are doing with our money.”
He then instructed the AMAC chairman to “go and refund them their money.”
“You don’t just name an important street after somebody when you don’t know where the money is coming from. You will not do that again,” he warned the chairman.
