opinion
By Danladi Akilu
It is no longer news that some development analysis are beginning to draw a parallel between Senator Bala Abdulkari Mohammed, the man whose public/private partnership modules are accelerating the development of Africa's fastest growing city and the United Kingdom-trained Sheikh Mohammed bin Khalifa Al Maktoun who is generally regarded as the architect of rapid transformation of Dubai.
Through a strategy designed to lure multinational companies, Sheikh Mohammed successfully turned Dubai into the global business hub of the Middle East with the land reform decree he issued in 2002, which allowed foreigners to own real estate in Dubai - a first in any Gulf state. This reform is akin to the courageous land reforms and the swap strategy that has was introduced by Senator Mohammed in 2011 in the FCT.
Prior to the reforms, Dubai had no real estate market and land was given out under semi feudalism. In other words, all land was held by the sheikhs or by favoured Emirati friends upon whom the sheikhs had bestowed parcels. Everyone else - including every foreigner - was a tenant.
But with the 2002 reform, anyone could buy a home or land in Dubai - an opportunity with particular appeal to wealthy families in unstable countries nearby and others around the globe. Overnight, Dubai became a place for the magnates of the Middle East Asia and the former Soviet Union to invest their wealth. "Loaded Lebanese afraid of another civil war back home, Indian nouveaux riches seeking respite from the poverty in their doorsteps and Russian oligarchs banking assets stripped from operations in their decaying motherland all poured cash into Dubai properties." Overnight, Dubai became a place for the magnates of the Middle East, Africa (including Nigeria), South Asia and the former Soviet Union.
What is happening here in the FCT with the land swap policy introduced by Senator Bala Mohammed has uncanny relevance with the Dubai experience, as Abuja is equally becoming a veritable outpost for global investors leading to the city emerging as one of the three fastest-growing cities in the world. Between 2010 till date, Abuja's population has nearly doubled and its urbanized footprint tripling as well. Statistics also show that standard housing development for residential and institutional use has quadrupled in numbers and still ballooning. This rapid turn around is the product of Senator Bala Mohammed's ability to think outside the box and the secret is quite simple: The Minister has strategically opened the doorsteps of Abuja to private investors to pour in their enormous wealth into the infrastructural development of Abuja with added incentives.
As the FCTA Permanent Secretary, Engr. John Obinna Chukwu explained recently in Ohio at the 2014 Nigerians in Diaspora Summit, the implementation thrust of the transformation agenda in FCT is to open up the territory to unfettered private capital-driven development and it was this thrust that made the FCT Administration to introduce the Land Swap programme as a catalyst for accelerated infrastructure, housing and overall development.
Through the land swap model, the private sector is already being incentivized to provide site and services within the districts. Thus, government's emphasis is now on the provision of the policy and legal regulatory environment for seamless private sector participation. The benchmark of the current rolling plan is to open up the territory by providing at least 10 new districts within five years. The programme is based on contractual agreement with now fewer than 15 private investors on the basis of the land for infrastructure swap framework.
As was the case with Dubai, private investors in the FCT are now jostling to undo the other in their quest to secure tangible districts in the FCT where they can invest in infrastructural development through the land swap model.
-Akilu, wrote in from Durumi II District, Abuja
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