Senate Rejects Kingibe’s Motion On FCT Demolition, Land Seizure, Waste, Others

The senate on Wednesday rejected a motion sponsored by Ireti Kingibe, senator representing the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), which sought legislative intervention in what she termed failure of waste management and Sewage Services in the Federal Capital Territory.

The motion co-sponsored Aliyu, Wadada Ahmed (Nasarawa West), Imasuen, Neda Bernards (Edo South), Abbas, Aminu Iya (Adamazva Central), Dankwambo, Ibrahim Hassan (Gombe North) and Kalu, Orji Uzor (Abia North) also sought to draw attention to what she said was rampant desecration of designated green areas and the alleged unlawful seizure of land by the Nyesom Wike administration in the FCT.

Kingibe raised the motion under orders 41 and 51 of the senate standing rules, citing concerns over the worsening key areas in the FCT.

Other issues raised include the non-payment of salaries, non-mobilisation of contractors, issues surrounding land allocation and reallocation, and the depletion of land belonging to the University of Abuja.

She noted “with utmost alarm and indignation the total collapse of municipal waste collection across multiple districts of the Federal Capital Territory (FCI), where refuse has remained uncollected for several weeks, turning residential neighbourhoods, markets, business districts, and public spaces into open dumps and breeding grounds for disease.”

She also noted with “deep outrage that waste management and sewage workers under the Abuja Environmental Protection Board (AEPB) and other FCT agencies have allegedly gone unpaid for approximately nine months, a gross administrative failure that has triggered prolonged industrial action and paralysed essential municipal services in the nation’s capital.”

She argued that “former waste management contractors were owed arrears between March and October, 2025 effectively crippling their operations, and that despite these outstanding liabilities, new waste management contracts were awarded in Mid-November, 2025 arbitrarily retaining only 50% of the unpaid contractors while introducing new ones, without resolving existing financial obligations.”

The senator said she was disturbed that the newly engaged contractors have formally stated their inability to commence operations without a 30% mobilisation fee, thereby compounding delays and entrenching a sanitation crisis that threatens public health and safety.”

She urged the Federal Capital Territory Administration (FCTA) to immediately restore full waste collection services and ensure the emergency evacuation of all accumulated refuse across the FCT.

She also urged the Abuja Environmental Protection Board (AEPB) to immediately deploy sewage intervention teams to unblock, rehabilitate, and restore all failed sewage systems in order to avert imminent disease outbreaks.

In another prayer, she demanded that the “FCT Minister and the Federal Capital Development Authority (FCDA) immediately cease and desist from all revocations, reallocations, demolitions, and alterations affecting designated green areas, pending a comprehensive audit and strict compliance review with the Abuja Master Plan.”

She urged the Senate to constitute an Ad-Hoc Committee to conduct a thorough, time-bound investigation into the non-payment of workers and contractors and the collapse of waste and sewage management services.

She also demanded that the procurement processes, financial capacity, and readiness of newly engaged contractors be investigated.

According to her, the committee should investigate the status, encroachment, and illegal conversion of designated green areas” and “the compliance, or otherwise, of FCTA agencies and officials with statutory, constitutional, and judicial obligations.”

However, Senate President Godswill Akpabio, presiding, said the issues raised were not the same as those earlier discussed with him by the senator. Akpabio did not say what issued the FCT raised with him.

He added that the motion did not qualify as a matter of urgent national importance, particularly because of the number of issues bundled together.

“She should withdraw the motion and bring a substantive motion to discuss the issue of waste management,” Akpabio said.

Tahir Monguno, senate chief whip and senator representing Borno north, aligned with the senate president’s position, saying the motion failed to meet procedural requirements.

“There is nothing to discuss based on our rules. Because you can’t put something on nothing,” Monguno said.

Sunday Karimi, senator representing Kogi west, was more critical, accusing Kingibe of bringing the motion “in deceit”.

In her response, Kingibe said she would comply with the senate’s directive.

“I will represent it as a substantive motion on just waste management,” she said.