Why there are kidnappings in Abaji — Council boss

Alhaji Abdulrahman Ajiya, Chairman of Abaji Area Council, in this interview, attributes the cases of kidnappings in the council to it bordering three states of Kogi, Nasarawa and Niger. He also spoke about his plan to complete some ongoing projects he started during his first tenure. Excerpts: Now that you are into your second tenure […]

Alhaji Abdulrahman Ajiya, Chairman of Abaji Area Council, in this interview, attributes the cases of kidnappings in the council to it bordering three states of Kogi, Nasarawa and Niger. He also spoke about his plan to complete some ongoing projects he started during his first tenure. Excerpts:

Now that you are into your second tenure as the chairman of Abaji Area Council, which are the projects you will want to consolidate on?

Let me start by appreciating God for giving me the opportunity to still serve my people for a second term in office and I equally appreciate the good people of Abaji Area Council for the trust and confidence they have in me to pilot the affairs of the council.  Obviously, the first tenure was so challenging but we were able to carry out some projects.

For example, we were able to construct health centres across some wards, provide boreholes, rural roads, electricity, disbursement of scholarships to students and construction of culverts across streams in some rural villages, among others.

In this my second tenure, I want to see that most of these health centres are functional. The schools I built and those that require furniture and other instructional materials to make them functional would get all that this tenure. So in essence, I will continue with the projects I started to see that we put them into use.

In Gawu community of Abaji Area Council, we are building a police outpost and it is my hope that this my second term, we will  make sure it is completed and handed over to the police for use.

Also, I want to give emphasis to agriculture by making sure that we purchase tractors. We are already in consultations with the Federal Ministry of Agriculture to see how we can get the tractors at subsidised rate for our rural farmers.

There are increased cases of kidnapping in your council. How do you intend to tackle these challenges?

In fact, the issue of insecurity, most especially as it relates to kidnappings has become something of general concern to not only the area council, but to the Federal Government.

Abaji Area Council is not left out of it and it is more challenging in the sense that it shares borders with three states, Niger, Kogi and Nasarawa. Most of these boundaries are just some few metres or kilometres away from the FCT and the state governments have not paid attention to the security of these borders. So criminal elements use the boundaries as their safe haven as they are not operating within the landscape of the FCT. They only come in, strike and go back.

So because of that, the FCT has been finding it difficult, which is why I met with the Ona of Abaji, Alhaji Adamu Baba Yunusa, to intimate the police inspector general about the unrest and kidnap cases we are having in Abaji. And as God will have it, the police IG responded by directing the FCT police commissioner to liaise with the three commissioners of police of Niger, Kogi and Nasarawa so that they will find a lasting solution to the challenge of kidnapping we are facing in Abaji.

And the next day, the FCT police commissioner came here to Abaji, where some measures were taken to curtail cases of kidnappings.

Despite efforts to control erosion in some parts of the council it is still a problem here. Have you reached out to the Ecological Fund Office (EFO) or Ministry of Environment for necessary action about it?

You see, like this issue of erosion, to be precise, it was  last month that I took a tour of some of the affected areas with the staff of the works department to ascertain the level of ecological problems. We have always contacted the EFO about the environmental degradation challenges we are having here but when we went round, I instructed the works department to still come up with pictorial evidence and a write up to serve as a reminder to the office so that they can come to the aid of the affected areas.