By EMMANUEL AZIKEN

The settlement perched on the Northwest of the Federal Capital Territory was an attraction to me mainly because of the melodious intonation of the name of the town. It was especially captivating hearing those bus drivers in Abuja hailing passengers and shouting Mpape, Mpape, Mpape.

Mpape houses thousands and possibly hundreds of thousands of persons, and has existed since the first days of the establishment of the federal capital.

However, my first and only visit to the settlement in the nineties turned into a letdown. The settlement to my disappointment was a spread of ramshackle houses linked with very bad roads and with derelict infrastructure.

It is as such not surprising that the Minister of Federal Capital Territory, Senator Bala Mohammed has identified the area as an eye sore that needs to be cleaned up.

Senator Mohammed has given the inhabitants whose houses have been marked in the settlement to vacate by the end of this month after which he would order the caterpillars to move in.

A resident of Mpape running a business in Wuse Market on hearing the news that his house has been marked according to one newspaper report slumped and died.

The residents in desperation have conscripted famed peoples lawyer, Femi Falana, SAN to fight their cause in the court of law.

An interim injunction obtained by Falana against the immediate demolition of the settlement seems to have served no succor as the authorities in the FCT seem determined to ensure that the demolitions go ahead as scheduled.

The forcefulness with which the authorities of the Federal Capital Territory have brought to bear in their quest to sanitise the Mpape Area of the Abuja is remarkably worrisome. It is a reflection of the disconnect between the people and their elected officials.

In a democracy elected and appointed officials should ordinarily seek to please the public and cringe at the expression of public disapproval. But certainly not so here. Elected and appointed officials in these climes simply believe that they owe little or nothing to the electorate and as such conduct themselves in a manner as lords of the manor.

Were they considerate of public opinion, the Minister of Aviation and her team of officials would not have gone round the world seeking to attract investors into an industry that is simply comatose.

Despite the public outcry over the cost and course of her aviation road show, the Minister just damned the opposition and proceeded on a trip whose end result would in all probability be a mirage.

The obstinacy that ordinarily should only be expected in autocracies has simply become a comfortable trait of our democratic experience.

Remarkably, the outcry is not limited to the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP led national government. States governed by the opposition are not left out.

The bewildering cat and mouse game between the All Progressive Grand Alliance, APGA led administration in Imo State and the incumbent elected chairmen of the local government councils is a case in point.

Indeed, when it comes to the willful dismissal of public opinion, the opposition led state administrations are all on the same page with the PDP state administrations.

That is why many of them have refused to conduct local government elections and where they did, the process was twisted to favour the ruling party in the state.

Given Senator Mohammed’s past inclinations especially in the senate where he canvassed justice in the enthronement of the then Vice-President, Dr. Goodluck Jonathan as Acting President in 2010, he would do well to heed subsisting court decisions on the matter.