The Coalition Against Corrupt Leaders (CACOL) has described the proposed new Abuja City Gate as a misplaced priority.

Reacting to the news on behalf of the Coalition, Executive Chairman Debo Adeniran condemned the irrational appropriation of taxpayers’ hard earned money to irrelevant project that possesses no economic potentials for the masses.

The Minister of the Federal Capital Territory, Senator Bala Muhammed was quoted as saying that the decision to embark on the construction of a new city gate, at a cost of N64bn, was one of the steps being taken by his administration to restore Abuja’s original master plan, adding that the current city gate was wrongly located. Said Adeniran: “It is very disheartening that the government of the day is so detached from the people. The recent move of the FCT Minister to construct a new gate where one is existing with a whooping N64 billion is the height of insensitivity on the part of the Federal Government. The questions begging for answers are: what has gone wrong with the current gate to warrant a new one? Must we duplicate city gate at the expense of other meaningful projects that are begging for attention?” He described as “unfortunate” that such a huge amount of money could be devoted to a project that would have no positive impact on the millions of Nigerians living in abject poverty.

“This is nothing but a conspicuous conspiracy by the Minister and his cohorts to plunder the country’s treasury under the guise of beautifying the FCT which has no economic relevance to improve the living standard of the Nigerian masses,” he declared. He urged on the government to channel the N64bn into life-changing projects that would dwarf the ever growing rate of poverty among the Nigerian masses.