Minister of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Nyesom Wike, said security and job creation for the residents are the key priority areas in his agenda for the territory.
Wike made this known yesterday when the British high commissioner to Nigeria, Richard Montgomery paid him a country visit in his office in Abuja.
He said that United Kingdom and Nigeria had a long relationship since the colonial period, adding that the relationship has been getting stronger and stronger.
The minister who was responding to the request of the commissioner on priority areas of the administration, said his interest is centred on the priority of President Bola Tinubu’s Renewed Hope Agenda which is anchored on eight priorities.
Wike said the problems have not been all solved, but there is significant progress in addressing them, and that security in Abuja seem to be different because of the boundary states of Nasarawa, Niger, Kogi and Kaduna.
According to the minister, these neighbouring states have high activities of bandits and it appears that when they are getting it hot in those states they run to Abuja.
“Two months ago, it did appear to be too hot but you can now see that the level of criminal activities have come down very well because of the level of support and the commitment of security agencies, particularly the police.
“We gave the police and other security agencies a lot of logistics support and that is how I help them effectively to support the fight, this help to calm particularly banditry and kidnapping, I can tell you that we have made tremendous progress in terms of arresting the kidnappers.
“There is no part of this world where there won’t be any form of criminality, what is important is the swiftness of security agencies to apprehend and also try to prosecute those that are involved, so am happy with what we have done.
“We also realized that before now it does appear that there are no activities in Abuja, many people complain that Abuja is down but as we came on board activities have come on board,” he said.
The minister said that the present administration is proud to say that it has turned Abuja to a construction site which was not the case in the last eight years.
“Creating job is a priority, what that will mean to the teeming youths is that, more creation of job is not only where it is white-collar job, by these activities youths are involved, if you go to the area councils today there are a lot of jobs going on there, that has created way for the youths to be employed,” he said.
The British high commissioner to Nigeria, Richard Montgomery, in his remark, said the visit was critical because of the important role the minister and his team play in the commission.
“I have come to seek your view and understanding of approaches to the development of the Federal Capital Territory considering the many initiatives we have seen in the press which will lead to the prosperity of FCT.
“There have been security issues in the recent past, especially kidnapping, we want to get an update on the issue, also in a closed door meeting I will give you more updates on UK and Nigeria bilateral relationships.
“In the last few days, we have stepped up our engagements to the Federal Republic of Nigeria and a few weeks ago, the UK hosted the Nigeria defence on security and defence partnership, we shall be looking at how the business environment can be better as well,” he said.
