By Joyce Remi-Babayeju
The Federal Capital Territory, FCT, Minister, Barr. Nyesom Wike has said that the Rivers State political brouhaha is not a distraction to him, but rather his focus is on the delivery of the FCT Week — Long projects to mark President Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s first year in office.
Wike stated this on Friday after the final inspection of some ongoing projects scheduled to be commissioned by President Tinubu.
The FCT Minister said, “If I am distracted you won’t see this performance here. I focus on my work, my mandate as the FCT Minister, is to deliver dividends of democracy to the residents of FCT. ”
” I am not distracted. If l am distracted, how will these work progress? I’m not even thinking about it at all” Wike assured.
Meanwhile, the minister has disclosed that President Tinubu has approved a nine-day timeline for the commissioning of Abuja projects, tagged FCT Week for the inauguration of projects in the city.
The minister said that the FCT Week will commence on the 27th of May with the inauguration of commercial operation of the Abuja Rail Mass Transit.
Other projects to be inaugurated by the President during the FCT Week include the official residence of the Vice President, the Outer Southern Expressway (OSEX) from the Villa Roundabout to the Ring Road 1 with four numbers of interchanges as well as the B6 and B12 Circle Road.
The FCT Minister expressed satisfaction over all the road works inspected, and commended the contractors for delivering the jobs within the specified time frame.
According to him, this is the final inspection as regards the preparedness for the inauguration of various projects.
“From what we have seen, we believe we are ready for the commissioning from 27th of May and will end June 6th. It is going to be a nine-day-long event.”
So, we are happy that the contractors are meeting up, and all the promises they made have been fulfilled, and we have also fulfilled our part to make sure that we have cash backup. None of them is complaining in terms of cash, he Wike explained.
Speaking on the issues of some streetlights malfunctioning, the said, the FCT Minister said, “As I speak to you, they are working on it. And you also know that most of the projects we are doing, you don’t expect the lights to be on now.”
“So, sometimes, most of the streets you are referring to are those that are being worked on. We believe that before the commissioning, you will see most of the lights will be on, he noted.