“The Minister goes to the Villa everyday, I’m certain about this, but nobody knows why such daily trip to the villa,” said one FCTA official.
Feelers from the Federal Capital Territory Administration (FCTA) say many directors are groaning over weeks and sometimes months of unprocessed files and documents by the FCT Minister, Malam Mohammed Musa Bello, due to his frequent and prolonged periods of absence from office.
According to those who are close to the Area 11 office of the Minister, he is often in the presidential villa while his official duties are left unattended to in the office.
On the rare occasions that he shows up at his office, they worry that he does not seem to understand the urgency in public service as a result of his conduct, or the lack of it, said an official who pleaded for anonymity.
"Files stay for over a month, sometimes more without any reason or explanation in the Minister's office. We can tell you categorically there are files which have not been treated from last year to this day. The owners of these files are Nigerians and taxpayers that lose billions simply because the Minister has failed to do his job."
Engineer Abdulkadir Muhammad, a senior partner in a real estate company in Abuja, said, "The minister's behaviour is impunity of the highest order."
He expressed worries that many businesses and investments would be bad affected if the Minister is left to continue in his slow motion pace and nonchalant behavior towards official duties.
Some of who are familiar with the itinerant of the minister say he visits the presidential villa at least four times in a week, though the reasons behind those visits are not known.
“The Minister goes to the Villa everyday, I’m certain about this, but nobody knows why such daily trip to the villa,” said one FCTA official that did not want to be named.
He also corroborated that this has had negative impacts on the workings of the nation’s capital which is currently facing a lot of challenges including insecurity and shortage of infrastructural development particularly in the Satellite towns.
“This is the first time we will be having a near absentee minister, who must first go to the villa before working on files and documents on his table,” the official said.
The FCT Minister and some top officials of the FCTA have been recently invited by the House of Representatives for several reasons. While the Minister was invited for not appointing mandate secretaries and other critical officers, his directors have been indicted by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) and Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission (ICPC) of conniving with members of the Real Estate Developers Association of Nigeria (REDAN) to swindle beneficiaries of the mass housing scheme in the territory.
ICPC Chairman, Prof Bolaji Owasanoye, said that the Land Department of the Federal Capital Territory Administration (FCTA) was conniving with REDAN to swindle Nigerians in the territory.
He said his Commission had received several petitions and complaints from the real estate sector, off-buyers, developers, bothering on forgery, non-delivery of projects, marketing of fake land, fraudulent allocation, refusal of the government to pay fair values for acquired land, amongst others.
Owasanoye made the revelations before the House of Representatives Adhoc Committee investigating the real estate sector and the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) during a public hearing into various complaints against real sector actors in the FCT.