Federal Capital Territory (FCT)Minister is dreaming big. Dr. Aliyu Modibbo, days back, announced his administration's readiness to construct a boulevard. He did after a cabinet meeting. He was full of confidence that nothing could stop his dream. The cabinet had approved his project, of course. For the boulevard, the minister said, will stretch all the way from Eagle Square to the National Hospital. In between these two lie the million dollar Ministry of Finance edifice and the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC)tower. The two will be demolished. it was said.

Why must this be so? The minister was asked by news-hunters. The boulevard that will occupy their place is provided for in the FCT master plan. Since the master plan says so, it has to be implemented, Dr. Moddibo had answered. But sir, what of the fund already sunk into erecting these structures? Won't the demolition of these structures and many more amount to a waste of national resources? He was further asked. The minister's answer was matter-of-fact. Those who would buy plots of land afresh in the area in question will pay for them and so funds expended will be recouped. That was a rather cold, dispassionate answer. And it didn't go down well in some quarters.

For anyone who is familiar with the part of the FCT in question, the extent of what the minister plans to do is mind-numbing. A columnist (writing in Leadership, back page, June 3, 2008)was swift to criticise the minister. The Abuja master plan must be altered so as to allow the mentioned structures that he referred to as monuments to stand, he had argued. He then dismissed the minister's plan in its entirety. Many of such criticisms will still surface in the days to come. But all of them will miss the point. That's because they will be attacking what is the fall-out of a fundamental problem rather than the problem itself.

But lack of vision, adherence to rule, indiscipline and blatant disregard for the FCT plan when it came to implementing it led to the absence of the boulevard where it should have been. Now those who may argue against its construction will essentially be justifying a wrong using the right argument. But that doesn't cancel the wrong done. And that's another problem in itself. Wrongs after wrongs are swept under the carpet. It's the pattern in this nation; a major reason the nation is where it is. It's a major reason the FCT is no longer as planned.

Reformers always have a problem. Like the immediate past minister of the FCT, Mallam Nasir Ahmed el-Rufai, Dr. Modibbo is now in for a bashing. Critics of the boulevard project are seeing the minister who wants to put things where they should be as a problem. And what's more? Almost the same set of El-Rufai's critics are now jumping on Modibbo. Perhaps something should be pointed out here about critics that take reformers to the cleaners wholesale. They have a tendency of glorifying some people to make their targets look bad. In the effort, they paint some people as saints which they are not. And they paint others as devils which they can never be. Mostly, views of critics such as this appeal to the simple-minded, the unthinking. But there is something shallow and distasteful about it to any discerning mind. This writer is always of the view that any person in leadership position will get some things right. He also may get some things wrong. The latest move by Modibbo is a pointer that the efforts of the immediate past FCT administration to implement the master plan was not borne out of any other motive apart from a desire to restore the master plan. Somehow, many had personalised the issue and castigated the El-Rufai administration so much that Modibbo is about to pass for an angel. Then that suddenly changed after he too took a close look at the master plan, saw the extent of the wrong done to it and decided to put the wrong right.

One would have thought that the columnist earlier referred to as writing in Leadership newspaper would draw a parallel between what El-Rufai did as regards the master plan and what Modibbo has begun to do. This writer had watched with interest when, after the first couple of months in office, the current FCT administration announced to some illegal land developers in the FCT that it would come with the bulldozers. So it is not only El-Rufai that will ever need the services of bulldozer operators. Then a time came when Modibbo announced that his administration would commence the planting of one million trees in the FCT. As a matter of fact, trees are a major feature of the boulevard he plans to construct.

And to think many had accused El-Rufai of clearing illegal structures only to plant trees and flowers. The current administration is also struggling to keep roadside traders away from blocking paths of pedestrians in places such as Wuse market. El-Rufai had been accused of denying the poor of places to hawk their wares. It doesn't matter to such critics that these traders display their wares in places not meant for the purpose.

It's heart-rending the extent to which those who sat over the development of the FCT watched it develop outside its master plan over the years. Political and professional negligence on the part of those responsible for caring for the FCT have combined to make this possible. Where they were provided as regard any service at all, they were grossly inadequate, a measure of the thoughtlessness among those who should have known that population explosion in the FCT would be a possibility. And does the reader ever noticed that commercial buses have to climb roadside embankments at some points on FCT roads before they could park well in order to pick up passengers? The extent of inadequate infrastructure provision, indiscipline as well as neglect of the provisions of the master plan is such that a boulevard which ought to be on the path that successive heads of state took to the airport whenever they left the official residence has been sacrificed for some other purposes.

Anyone who carefully observes the arrangement of structures in the Central Area District of the FCT where the boulevard is to be constructed will notice that something is wrong. There is just something unwholesome, uncoordinated, lacking in aesthetics in the general area that are close to the most important sections of the nation's seat of government. That's talking about the Presidential Villa, the National Assembly and the Supreme Court. This is not the case in some other nations.

Excuse me, why is Nigeria always different when it comes to doing things right? The Super Eagles of Nigeria traveled to Malabo, capital of Equatorial Guinea recently.

When they returned, journalists mentioned how beautifully-laid out the city is all the way from the airport to the centre of Malabo. As they reported, Guineans promised that this is just a taste of the pudding, the work is still on-going to make their capital city the most beautiful on the continent.

How the nation's FCT got to this state is not surprising because the Presidential Villa itself is where the master plan never allocated to it. Once it occupied its present spot, other anomalies followed it there.

Now that men of vision come around to put things right, some rise up in arms. The fact of the matter is that enormous harm has been done to the nation's capital city.

Nothing should hinder attempts to correct the wrongs. It is gratifying that the minister has taken his boulevard plan to the Federal Executive Council (FEC). From what he is saying, it is clear he has the backing of the president in his effort to beautify that most significant part of the FCT. Very good, President Umaru Yar'adua is a stickler for rule of law. The Abuja Master plan is a rule. It is a law. It must be implemented. For no argument, however strong, can justify wrongs arising from failure to stick to rules.