By George Mgbeleke <\/p>\n
There was rowdy session in the Senate on Wednesday, as Senate rejected a motion seeking to summon the Minister of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Nyesom Wike, over worsening waste management, sewage failures and the alleged unlawful revocation and conversion of designated green areas in Abuja.<\/p>\n
The motion, titled \u201cUrgent Need for Intervention in Waste Management, Sewage Services, Protection of Designated Green Areas, and Investigation into the Alleged Unlawful Seizure of Land Belonging to Bwari General Hospital, FCT,\u201d was sponsored by Senator Ireti Kingibe (LP, FCT), alongside Senators Wadada Ahmed Aliyu, Mohammed Muntari Dandutse, Neda Imasuen, Aminu Iya Abass, Ibrahim Dakwambo and Orji Uzor Kalu.<\/p>\n
Presenting the motion under Orders 41 and 51, which allows for urgent matters of importance to be raised without prior notice, Kingibe said the situation in the nation\u2019s capital had reached \u201ccrisis proportions,\u201d noting that \u201cmunicipal waste collection across several districts of the FCT has not been carried out for several weeks, leading to massive accumulation of solid waste in residential, commercial and public spaces.\u201d<\/p>\n
She told the chamber that workers and contractors under the Abuja Environmental Protection Board, AEPB and other FCT agencies had \u201cnot been paid for about nine months,\u201d a development she said had triggered industrial action and \u201cthe collapse of essential municipal services.\u201d<\/p>\n
According to her, \u201cformer waste management contractors were not paid between March and October 2025,\u201d and although new contracts were awarded in mid-November 2025, \u201conly 50 per cent of the former unpaid contractors were retained, while 50 per cent new ones were introduced.\u201d<\/p>\n
Kingibe added that the newly engaged contractors had formally written the FCT Minister, stating that \u201cthey cannot commence operations without a 30 per cent mobilisation fee,\u201d further worsening delays in waste collection and sewage management.<\/p>\n
She warned that \u201csewage blockages and accumulated waste have been building up for nearly eight months and have now reached crisis proportions,\u201d stressing that blocked and overflowing sewage systems \u201cexpose residents to waterborne diseases, environmental contamination and severe sanitation risks.\u201d<\/p>\n
Beyond sanitation, the senator accused the FCT Administration of undermining the Abuja Master Plan through what she described as the systematic conversion of designated green areas.<\/p>\n
\u201cGreen areas under the Abuja Master Plan, intended as service corridors for sewage, water and electricity infrastructure, as well as environmental buffers, are being built on through illegal revocations, forced evictions and reallocations,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Kingibe further alleged that \u201ceven where the reallocation of land is the subject of ongoing litigation, the FCT Minister has proceeded to demolish and reallocate such lands in total disregard of subsisting court processes.\u201d<\/p>\n
She cited the University of Abuja as a major victim, saying, \u201cabout 7,000 hectares of the university\u2019s original 11,000 hectares have been taken over, reallocated or subjected to unauthorised use, leaving the institution with insufficient land to fulfil its statutory mandate.\u201d<\/p>\n
Recalling previous Senate intervention, she said, \u201cBarely a year ago, this Senate was compelled to call the Honourable Minister of the FCT to order over similar issues, yet these practices persist.\u201d<\/p>\n
However, the Senate called for the motion to be dropped for not complying with the rules of the Red Chamber. Raising the issue, Senate President Godswill Akpabio said Kingibe had informed him, in compliance of the rules of the Senate, of a motion on rising solid waste in the FCT and ots attendant health risks but didn\u2019t mention other issues – the inclusion of land revocation. <\/p>\n
He noted that the order she cited only permits her to speak on a particular topic, adding that she ought to have raised a substantive motion to talk about everything she spoke of in her debate.<\/p>\n
Similarly, Senator Tahir Monguno (APC Borno North), who had initially supported the motion and called for a summon of the FCT Minister, later withdrew his support. Also, the Deputy Senate President, Barau Jibrin, dismissed the allegations against Wike as baseless, saying evidence of his work is clear for all to see.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere are now developments in the FCT. The current minister changed the face of Abuja. He’s doing extremely very well. You cannot solve all problems at the same time, if there are other areas that needed to be done, we should engage our committee to interact with the minister so that he could do more,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Senate Leader, Opeyemi Bamidele, also called for the withdrawal of the motion, calling for a substantive motion on notice.<\/p>\n
After the debates, Akpabio urged Kingibe to withdraw the motion and bring a motion on notice instead to which she complied.<\/p>\n
\u201cI will re-present it as substantive motion on waste management,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
By George Mgbeleke There was rowdy session in the Senate on Wednesday, as Senate rejected a motion seeking to summon the Minister of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Nyesom Wike, over worsening waste management, sewage failures and the alleged unlawful revocation and conversion of designated green areas in Abuja. The motion, titled \u201cUrgent Need for […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":8992,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[921,5671,5670,2830],"class_list":["post-9524","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-politics","tag-management","tag-sewage-failures","tag-waste","tag-worsening"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyechoes.ng\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9524","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyechoes.ng\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyechoes.ng\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyechoes.ng\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyechoes.ng\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9524"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dailyechoes.ng\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9524\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9525,"href":"https:\/\/dailyechoes.ng\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9524\/revisions\/9525"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyechoes.ng\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8992"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyechoes.ng\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9524"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyechoes.ng\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9524"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyechoes.ng\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9524"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}