The Federal Capital Territory Administration (FCTA), ongoing construction project of bus and taxi terminals in three different locations within territory, under the watch of FCT Minister, Barrister. Nyesom Wike, has presently engaged over 3000 residents of the nation’s capital, Abuja.
The projects has also reached advanced stage and will soon be ready for commissioning.
The Project Manager of the company handling the projects, Planet Projects, Rasheed Soladoye, disclosed this to newsmen over the weekend in Abuja.
Soladoye stated that in terms of creating employment for FCT residents, he said the company have worked with over three thousands residents on the projects.
According to Soladoye, since the projects construction started in July last year in Mabuchi and Kugbo, it has been smooth, while take off of Central Area was delayed for about two months owning to some challenges encountered concerning the site locations.
He however disclosed that both Mabuchi and Kugbo are 92 and 85 percent completed while that of Central Area was put at 50 percent due to aforementioned challenges.
He said the feat being achieved by his company was significantly based on the promise made and promise kept on the making of funds available for the projects by the FCT Minister, Barr. Nyesom Wike whom he described as one who always keeps to his word.
He said: “We started the project sometime in July last year, we started with Mabuchi on 1st of July, then on the 2nd of July we started that of Kugbo, this one at the central area couldn’t start in time because of certain issue, we faced a little delay of about two months, that was why we couldn’t start at the same time with the others, the challenges was about siting, where we were initially given in the Central Area have issue of litigation on it, so, it took us sometimes before we could found this place, and when we got here we discovered there was underground facilities that needed to be removed and relocate and since that has been done you can see the work is going on smoothly too because we don’t have challenges in the area of fund at all.
“Hopefully with our schedule, by the grace of God by May we will commission this particular one in the Central area, while that of Mabuchi and Kugbo will be ready for commissioning by the end of this month of February.
“You can see various activities that are ongoing, we combine commercials with what we do so that people can feel relaxed and feel at home when they are here, pay for your ticket, maybe you are waiting for your bus, this is where you can relax, and we have all these digital platforms that will be making announcement whether the bus they are going to board is ready when you look our front here, we have shops for commercial activities.
“The ticketing area is at the back there, we also have a space for any bank that wants to partner with us, we have what we call ATM gallery, to my other side we have provision for cinema, where people can come and enjoy themselves by watching night movies and do all other things that have to do with entertainment, we have engaged the services of about twenty security men, we have engaged some women too, for the sweeping of this place on daily basis, this is just for the beginning, by the time we are done, you will see a whole lot of things, in fact, we’re going to employ 18 people to be in charge of ticket selling.
“We have employed many residents of the FCT in this projects since we started, including the natives, you can even see them around, as a matter of fact over three thousands have worked with us and others are still working as we are now at the finishing stage of the projects, especially for that of Mabuchi and Kugbo.
“FCT residents have enjoyed enormously from this project. We have employed a whole lot of them. You know it’s a construction site and certain workers will be needed at certain stages of the construction. It’s difficult to give you an exact number but more than 3,000 residents have been engaged and more will be employed as the work progresses,” he said.
Abigael Jatao, a native of Abuja who is one of the cleaners employed by the company had this to say: ” I’m an indegene of Mabuchi, it’s not long since I joined the Planet Projects as one of their cleaners, I have just work with the company for one month now, but I can tell you that I enjoy working with them, my working with them has really changed my life, it is different from where I used to work before, in fact I am very happy with the siting of this project in my area here in Mabuchi, my big thank goes to the FCT Minister, Nyesom Wike for wonderful things he has been doing in this Abuja, may God bless him in a big way.
Another cleaner, Abigail Daniel who hail from Plateau State also expressed her happiness for being among the cleaners employed by the company.
“I just started working with the company yesterday, am using this opportunity to thank the company for employing me, before I was working with one madam, but she travelled out, she promised to open a business for me but she failed to do it, that is why I decided to look for another work for myself. So, I thank God for making this company employ me and also thank the Minister of FCT, Nyesom Wike for building this kind of thing here. May God bless him,” she stated.
While expressing their views concerning the soon-to-be-completed bus and taxi terminals the duo of Edani Vincent who introduced himself as the Taskforce Chairman and State Chairman, Association of Luxury Bus Owners Of Nigeria, Jabi Motor Park, and Patrick Enyiako also Financial Secretary appears to be happy with the introduction of modern bus and taxi terminals by the FCT Administration as they also solicit for the Administration’s assistance towards upgrading the Jabi Motor Park to a befitting standard.
Edani Vincent: “The work of FCT, Minister of constructing parks terminals for service within FCT is very good and nice because we believes it will help us to stop one chance in FCT, we have been fighting against one chance.
“All this roadside loading in the FCT is not supposed to be like that. So with these parks in those areas, you can simply go to the park and board a vehicle.
“These three new bus and taxi terminals now lead you to anywhere you want to go in FCT, you can go there and enter your motor than to be causing obstruction on the road.
“But when you come to the park and enter the motor, if anything happens, you come back to the park, they will know the driver of the vehicles they load passengers to.
“We really appreciate the FCT minister the way he is reconstructing the road and putting the parks in FCT in order. We love it, and we also encourage him to come to this our Jabi Central Motor Park to help us modernized it, the park here is for a long journey.
“There was a time a developer came and told us he would help us modernise this place, but later, we didn’t hear anything again, since 2019 or 2020 thereabout.”
For Patrick Enyiako, the introduction of such new transport arrangements will go a long way in bringing down intra transport fare being charged by drivers within the city.
“Apart from helping to bring down the cost of transportation within the city, it will also make all these ‘one chance’ people to stop their criminal activities, because we heard that once the parks start operations those who have turned roadside to park will not be allow to operate again,” he stated.
