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Abuja was once a city admired for its serenity and relative cleanliness. Today, those glory days are gone. Under Nyesom Wike’s stewardship as minister of the Federal Capital Territory, the capital has witnessed an alarming decline in its environment. Mountains of refuse now line street corners, drainages are choked with silt and plastics, and the stench of neglect lingers in neighbourhoods where residents once took pride in their surroundings.
Wike is desperate to be seen as a “performer,” but performance is not measured only in asphalt and concrete. His tenure so far has been marked by ribbon-cutting ceremonies for roads and bridges, vanity projects that create photo opportunities but leave behind a city buckling under the weight of poor waste management. Abuja is a capital where prestige has always rested not just on its architecture, but on its order and its cleanliness. That reputation is now in tatters.
In just two years, the transformation has been unmistakably negative. Refuse piles stay uncollected for weeks in the city centre, while satellite towns have been reduced to open-air dumps. Heavy rains turn blocked gutters into cesspools, fuelling floods and exposing residents to cholera, malaria, and other diseases. The minister’s fixation on showpiece projects betrays a lack of understanding of what makes a city liveable.
Wike’s defenders argue that infrastructure matters — and they are right. But infrastructure without sustainability is hollow. A city is not defined only by how quickly one can drive across its bridges, but also by whether its children grow up free from the hazards of environmental decay. The capital of Africa’s largest economy should never look, smell, or feel like a neglected slum.
Other cities have faced similar crises but responded with foresight. Curitiba in Brazil became a global model of urban renewal by investing in waste-for-recycling schemes that engaged citizens directly. Seoul in South Korea transformed its waste system by introducing accountability measures that forced both government and residents to act responsibly. Even cities like Kigali, with far fewer resources than Abuja, maintain standards of cleanliness that Nigeria’s capital can only dream of today.
The contrast is stark. Where others embraced sustainability, Wike clings to vanity. Where others saw waste management as central to governance, Abuja’s leadership treats it as an afterthought. The result is a capital city in decay, one where residents are forced to live with filth while their minister boasts about highways.
Abuja’s decline is not inevitable; it is a direct product of leadership choices. When governance prioritises optics over essentials, when competence gives way to theatrics, the city suffers. Wike has shown glaring incompetence in understanding that sanitation is the backbone of urban life. Without clean streets, functional drainage, and an efficient waste system, no bridge can hide the shame that Abuja has become.
For those of us who live here, the pain is personal. The Abuja of today is not the Abuja we knew. It is a city stripped of its pride, buried in refuse, and betrayed by the very leadership meant to preserve its dignity. Unless there is a radical change in priorities, the decline will only deepen. And history will remember that under Wike, the city once known for order and cleanliness became a cautionary tale of environmental degradation.
Bewaji, a Recycling Specialist lives in Abuja
