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From Idu Jude, Abuja
Buba Swani, is the chairmanship candidate of the Zenith Labour Party (ZLP) in the Abuja Municipal Area Council (AMAC) 2026 election. He has a vision for youth empowerment and mass housing projects to justify huge internal revenue generation in one of the richest LGAs in Nigeria.
He said, with an addition of N1.3 billion federal allocation, the infrastructure development of a smart city is possible.
Excerpts:
Why do you want to contest for the position of AMAC chairman?
I have been in Abuja for the past 40 years, and I have witnessed its evolution from what it used to be to what it is now. Essentially, we have observed that there is no comprehensive plan for the future of the youth in the FCT. As someone who spent my youth years here, I have witnessed the need for improvement.
I believe I can achieve that with the proper harnessing of basic education for the youth of AMAC. I believe that we can start by character moulding of the pupils from elementary schools so that they become useful to the society. We aim to create opportunities for a hub where different trades can learn, aside from conventional education. Technically, we get to know their strengths and weaknesses and mould them so that when they come out, they can contribute meaningfully to the economy of AMAC and that of the FCT in general.
AMAC has the largest IGR among the six area councils of the FCT as of today. Do you think such has been well utilised?
From the federation account, AMAC gets over N1.3 billion monthly, but the IGR is based on what they tell us; if you put your machinery on the ground, you will have more than what they declare. At the moment, no one knows what they declare, but the way the government remains elusive, we can do better if given the opportunity. So, why we want to come is for transparency, so that taxpayers can see what we do with their money. And create opportunities for ease of doing business, and also to assist the minister of FCT in whatever he is doing. When we come into power, we will partner with several agencies for increased revenue generation and possibly for the proper implementation of our manifesto.
You are more or less an indigene of the FCT. Can you mention one or two areas where AMAC lags behind in terms of infrastructure development?
Apart from youth development, there is a poor mass housing programme in the Abuja Municipal Area Council (AMAC). We have seen the way residents struggle with payments of house rents in the present economy. Such is in our manifesto even though it is not our number one priority. We know the city centre that houses the president looks a little developed because the minister is doing well within the city. But we are concentrating on the suburbs. At least we have 12 council wards in AMAC, and in dealing with the issue of mass housing, we are going to execute what we call the green estate housing programme. We are going to combine housing for the low-income earners and provide greenery within the estate too.
The estates will have a full range of features of a town, including schools, a police station, and recreation centres. The estate is to be built with an ultramodern low-cost building material to be run under a public-private partnership (PPP). We chose to do this because shelter is a basic necessity in human lives. If one gets shelter, the mind is at rest to some extent. So, we are really going to work on the area of mass housing in the 12 wards, if we can make it at least this can be achieved in the first four years.
In addition, to that, even when we knew that the issue of security is not within the purview of the AMAC Chairman, we would help by providing community or neighbourhood watch. This is because security is key in human lives and in any developing society. And we are going to take it seriously and when we talk about security, we are talking about lighting up the entire AMAC council wards and getting the community guards that will work in collaboration with the police, and as the chairman, working with the police is key so that there will be sharing of ideas and networking of information.
Your party presented two candidates that are non-Gbagyi indigenes, how do you plan to thrive?
That is not a challenge, because we have seen non-indigenes as the former chairman of AMAC. Abuja is the Federal Capital Territory. I have Gbagyi friends and friends from different ethnic groups. And it is about understanding. I met an Imam during the course of my consultation, but he told his followers that he had not seen Muslim faithful who held public offices, and had failed to do anything for fellow Muslims. So, leadership is not about religion or ethnicity. It is all about the ability to transform people from their old way of living to a better one. Come to think of it, Abuja is the Federal Capital Territory, and come to think of it, if you do a census here, you will be convinced that the non-indigenes are more in number than the indigenes.
In case you are asked to step down for another candidate, what will you do?
That does not depend on me. Yes, I am the one running for the chairmanship, but I have people who are with me. These are people who will sit down and decide what the party will do. And when I say people behind me, these are people who have been in Abuja for over 40 years. People who know me and people with whom we intend to achieve certain goals set in our manifesto together. But I can tell you that becoming the AMAC Chairman is more important because of how we want AMAC to be in the next four to eight years. So, in planning to achieve that, it does not mean I should step down for anyone.
