More than three months after President Bola Ahmed Tinubu commissioned the Kugbo and Mabushi bus terminals in Abuja, the gates remain firmly under lock and key. Despite the fanfare, ribbon-cutting ceremony, and media coverage that accompanied the June event, commuters in the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) are still battling the same chaotic and unsafe transport system the terminals were meant to reform.
This raises troubling questions: why commission projects that are clearly not ready for use? Why spend billions of taxpayers’ naira erecting these edifices, only to leave them wasting away? Why raise the hopes of Abuja residents, only to dash them with silence and neglect?
The answer, unfortunately, lies in a familiar Nigerian pattern — an administration more interested in optics than in actual delivery.
Commissioning non-functional infrastructure is not only dishonest; it is a glaring sign of incompetence. It suggests that the FCT administration is more concerned with photo opportunities and political point-scoring than solving the daily struggles of the people.
A Nigerian newspaper, The Daily Trust, reported that these terminals, designed with state-of-the-art facilities, were supposed to serve over 10,000 passengers daily, house 120 buses, and help eliminate the menace of “one-chance” criminals. Today, those same criminals continue to thrive on Abuja’s roads, while the facilities that could curb their operations rot away behind closed gates.
Every day the terminals remain locked, the suffering of Abuja’s commuters deepens. Workers and students are crammed into unsafe and unregulated vehicles, fares remain unpredictable, and insecurity festers. At the same time, the unused structures begin to decay — a colossal waste of public resources that the people cannot afford.
This is negligence, pure and simple. A responsible government should have resolved all pending issues — from securing operators to setting up logistics — before commissioning. To do otherwise is to play politics with infrastructure, turning what should have been a beacon of progress into a cruel reminder of insincerity.
Minister Nyesom Wike must be reminded that leadership is not about camera flashes or grand speeches. It is about tangible results. Abuja does not need another politician parading unfinished projects; it needs a minister who can deliver on promises and prioritise the well-being of ordinary citizens.
The Kugbo and Mabushi bus terminals must be opened immediately. Anything short of this is a betrayal of the taxpayers who funded them and a disservice to the growing commuting population of Nigeria’s capital city.
Abuja deserves a working, safe, and reliable transport system — not empty edifices locked away from the people they were built for.
Awagya, a senior lecturer, writes from Karu, Abuja
