By Moses Okorie
A frontline aspirant for the chairmanship position of the Abuja Municipal Area Council, AMAC, in the 2026 FCT councils elections, Pharmacist Chilaka Sigmund Chimezie, has unveiled his agenda and what residents of the area council stand to benefit if they vote him as their chairman in the election.
Chimezie bared his mind on Friday when he, accompanied by the Garki Ward chairman of the party, Comrade Joshua Madaki as well as some members of his team, paid a consultative visit on the executive members of the Labour Party for AMAC in their office at Asokoro, Abuja.
In his ‘Service to the People’ mantra, the AMAC chairmanship hopeful, outlined his core areas of interest to include provision of adequate security in the area council, ensuring prompt payment of workers salaries and other entitlements, enhancing quality healthcare delivery for residents of the area council as well as providing long term empowerment programme for youths.
According to him, “The essence of me coming to vie for this post is to transform things; to make things happen. I am a civil servant working with FCT High Court, I am presently the president of the FCT High Court Cooperative Society.
“When I came to the cooperative, there was no structure; I formed the structure myself. I started the cooperative office, created a platform, and we have all files of the cooperative saved in the cloud. When I came in, I met a check-up dues of N38 million, but as for today, our due is N95 million.
“We are building a big estate at Gwagwalada; 72 plots of land somewhere close to Jubeco. If you get there, ask for FCT High Court Estate you would see it. It is under my tenure we started it last year, and by the grace of God, we are going to finish it this year. It is one of these projects I am going to hand over. Those are verifiable facts. I believe if I get to AMAC, I am going to do things right.
“We had incidence of one-chance operation involving one of my staff last year December. We went to police station, they said we should pay for tracking, and they said they cannot read what they tracker. But, if I become the AMAC chairman, we will have to tackle all these things. We need to give them more training so that if they are able to track, they should be able to read what they tracked.
“Secondly, in terms of revenue generation, we discover that AMAC generally go on revenue drive anyhow; even the one they are not permitted to collect, they collect it, they end up in the court, and most of their cases they loss them. When I get there, I am going to ensure that things are properly organized, and we will work according to AMAC laws. There is a law guiding AMAC.
“I am going to empower the youths. Empowering them doesn’t mean to give them money to run away with. We are going to do a partnership with them, if we have in a ward like 10 persons from each of the 12 electoral wards in AMAC, and we have 120 youths, we can now get machines for them, get everything for them, partner with them, because if you don’t partner with them, most of them will sell off the machines and run away.
In the health section, he said as a pharmacist and a product of the Ahmadu Bello University Zaria and has been practicing for 26 years, and said he would take care of healthcare in the grassroot, a lot of people cannot afford to pay for healthcare. He promised to establish health insurance scheme for AMAC dwellers so that health would be cheap.
Pharmacist Chimezie and his team
On staff welfare, Chimezie said, “Sometimes AMAC staff complain that their salaries are not paid on time. We are going to pay them salaries on time with other welfare packages so that they would be motivated to work. We are infrastructures; roads, but most people don’t go to supervise them. In my tenure, we are going to have people who drive round the streets to monitor all these”.
Speaking, the Garki Ward chairman, Comrade Joshua Madaki solicited support of the AMAC executive in ensuring Chimezie who is a member of his ward is given the opportunity to fly the Labour Party flag, because he is man of honesty and has the capacity to wrestle powers from the incumbent Peoples Democratic Party, PDP.
In his response, AMAC chairman of the Labour Party, Comrade Ifeanyi Uzochukwu applauded Chimezie for coming with his ward chairman, and urged him to work in the interest of the party whether he wins or loses the primary election.