The decision of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) authorities to enforce certain policies including the ban on the sale of alcoholic beverages and the work schedule of park and garden operators has been generating reactions among Nigerians. DEBORAH ONYOFUFEKE, who has been monitoring the development, reports.

The benefits of parks and gardens, especially in a cosmopolitan city like Abuja, cannot be over-emphasised. From improving physical and psychological health to making the environment and neighbourhoods more beautiful places to live and work, the benefits of parks are endless. Parks and gardens provide a diverse and quantifiable range of benefits that immensely improve the quality of life of the people.

Parks offer opportunities to enrich the quality of life for diverse kinds of people. Research has shown that when people have access to parks, they relax and exercise more. Regular physical activity has been shown to increase health and reduce the risk of a wide range of diseases, including heart disease, hypertension, colon cancer, and diabetes.

Physical activity also relieves symptoms of depression and anxiety, improves mood, and enhances psychological well-being. It has also been established that contact with natural habitats improves physical and psychological health.

In Nigeria, parks and gardens have become major sources of employment for the teeming Nigerian youths who graduate from schools at different levels of education without government jobs. Yes, hundreds of youths now easily find their fortunes in parks and gardens as workers.

So, when the coordinator, Abuja Metropolitan Management Council (AMMC), Umar Shuaibu, first announced the decision of the Federal Capital Territory administration ordering park operators to open by 8 am and close at 7pm, many residents of the nation’s capital city especially park and garden operators, as well as fun seekers, did not realize what was staring them in the face-that their comfort was about being taken from them.

Although Shuaibu had explained that the enforcement was on the side-line of the implementation of the FCT park policy that prohibits unwholesome activities, not many had imagined that a ban on the sale of alcohol would be attached.

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Even as a ban on alcoholic beverages is in force in most northern states, no one had ever contemplated that a similar decision could ever be emplaced in Abuja considered a miniature Nigeria, having been the capital of Nigeria with a high concentration of people of diverse ethnic and religious backgrounds.

While explaining that the enforcement would enable the administration to have data on parks and checkmate their activities, especially the ones that violate the laws, he noted that parks were meant for the protection of green areas of the city, beautification, and relaxation of the residents and not drinking joints and drug peddling.

Those who had initially thought the pronouncement by Shuaibu could be one of the hasty decisions of overzealous government officials without the backing of authorities were wrong when the Senior Special Assistant on Monitoring, Inspection, and Enforcement to the Minister of the FCT, Mr Ikharo Attah, told journalists last weekend that enforcement of the policy would commence immediately to bring about sanity.

“The issue of the park policy is very clear; the FCT Administration is very clear on it. The coordinator of the Abuja Metropolitan Management Council, with the director of Parks and Recreation, has clarified the issue.

“Minister of the FCT, Malam Muhammad Bello, has given the marching order to implement the park policy and it is clear; from 7 pm all parks are to remain closed that is what the park policy contains.

“With the approval of the minister, from tomorrow Monday, all parks should close at 7 p.m. Parks that refuse to close at the stipulated time would be sanctioned.

“I have received calls from some of them that people want to enjoy after closing from work till deep in the night, but I say no. The city will have to adjust to the fact that parks close by 7 pm, when it’s dark. “Everybody can adjust to it.”

Attah’s pronouncement caused anger in many quarters, especially given his blatant refusal to extend the operating hours of the leisure areas.

Some residents have dared the FCT administration, threatening to resist the enforcement with their last strength. Also, some park and garden operators as well as their customers accused the Minister of the Federal Capital Territory, (FCT) Minister, Mohammed Bello, of initiating clandestine moves aimed at implementing Sharia law in the nation’s capital city, vowing to resist his antics.

They reminded the minister that Nigeria was a secular state hence every tribe and religion must have equal opportunity in their ways of life without disruption.

Some park operators and their customers who responded to questions on the planned ban on alcohol in parks and gardens as well as the closure of the leisure centres by 7pm by the minister, warned him against going ahead with his decision, vowing to resist it with all the strength in them.

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A park operator, Rhoda Amedu, told ThisNigeria that the minister must halt the plan, saying his action if carried out would impede their financial success as according to her, they earn their living from the patronage of the products they sell.

Amedu, who begged that his business name be kept in secrecy because FCT authorities could send some of their agents after her premises, warned that any attempt to extend the law in Kano and other northern states banning alcoholic beverages to Abuja would meet stiff resistance, noted that FCT is a miniature Nigeria with people of diverse culture and tradition as residents.

“We have been hearing about this law in Kano and other parts of the North where people who share different socio-cultural ideologies are made to abide by the culture of their hosts. This is wrong. We forget easily that Nigeria, going by the extant law, is a secular state. This must not be allowed to penetrate the FCT considered as Nigeria’s federal capital city,” she said.

Amedu said she has three unemployed graduates besides her two children in two different universities, saying even as they are at home following the ongoing strike by the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) she still caters to their various needs, explaining that the garden was her only source of income.

“What does he want us to do? As a park operator, I can tell you that it is from 7pm he (minister) wants us to close business that we get customers. And most of the customers request the things he wants us to stop selling. The products are not forbidden, they are not contraband goods.

“If you are not taking a particular thing, why would you impose what you dislike on others, “she fumed.

Amedu called on Nigerians to rise against what she termed as the “unacceptable policy of the FCT administration.”

Another park operator, Glory Joel, who also frowned at the directive of the minister, warned against the implementation of the ban on alcohol and the closure of parks and gardens as early as 7pm.

“The FCT authorities should be concerned about how to create jobs. The government is not helping people to get jobs and the few that have something to do are being laid off by unpopular policies of the FCT authorities. This is unacceptable,” she said.

She added, “As far as I’m concerned, the minister had not provided any cogent reason why he wants to do what he’s pushing for. Is he saying parks and gardens in the FCT are breeding grounds for the growing insecurity in the country or what? We have been creating jobs that the government is doing little or nothing to create,” she added.

Speaking also, a customer of Godsway Garden, who identified himself as Zakaria John, appealed to the FCT minister to reconsider his steps on the ban, saying the action if allowed to see the light of the day, would create insecurity following the number of employed people it would affect.

“The FCT minister should reconsider his step, we can’t force a decision of some people on others. If some people don’t take alcohol as a way of their lives, should others from different faiths, cultures, and backgrounds be subjected to their ways of life? No. So, in all honesty, I think what they are trying to do in the FCT is wrong and I appeal to the minister to halt it as fast as possible if at all he’s behind the ban on alcohol and closure of parks and gardens by 7pm as being rumoured,” he said.

Another customer who called his name Abuja Ameh, an indigene of the nation’s capital city, also called on the FCT minister to drop what he referred to as “unpopular policy.”

“Abuja is a city where people of diverse cultures and orientations live to pursue their daily living. It would be wrong to stop some people from doing what they feel is suitable for them just because you feel it’s against your way of life. We are told that Nigeria is a secular state and must for now remain so in all intents and purposes until pronounced otherwise constitutionally,” he said.

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The parks and gardens owners have written the minister reminding him of the pendency of the suit they filed against him following the decision.

They called on the minister to uphold the rule of law and call his aides to order and stop the enforcement of the closure of parks and gardens by 7pm in the Federal Capital Territory.

In a letter written through their lawyer, Ifeanyi Remy Agu, the group stated, “Re Suit No: CV/408/2008: Barrister (Mrs) Amanda Pam (Proprietor Suez Garden) & 60 Others -Plaintiffs Vs Hon Minister FCT Defendant. Enforcement of 6pm Closing Hour by FCTA-Action Sub-Judice,” he stated “as solicitors to the plaintiffs in the above-stated suit pending before the FCT High Court, we draw your attention to the threatened enforcement of 6pm closing hour by the proprietor of gardens in the FCT by your Senior Special Assistant (SSA) on Monitoring and Enforcement, Comrade Ikharo Attah which action is sub-Judice of the pending case before the court.

“Suffice it to say that we live in a democratic society where rule of law prevails against personal desires and brigandage of public servants. The terms of settlements in the above matter have been ordered to be filed by the honourable court after the parties agreed in terms and principles,” he added.

Agu noted that “Our clients received with the greatest shock the threatened enforcement by the SSA against the claimants. Sir as a Minister in the temple of Justice, we appeal to you to use your good office to call the SSA to order more especially as the case is before a court of law and the parties have agreed on principles.

Although the FCT administration is not known to be a respecter of court orders, whether it would go ahead to enforce the policy that is already been challenged in the court of competent jurisdiction is what Nigerians wait to see by this coming week.