Parks

Parks, Alcohol and the Right to Revel
By

Garba Deen Muhammad

University Putra Malaysia

Recently the Federal Capital Territory Administration (FCTA) under its new Minister, Senator Adamu Aliero, announced a major policy decision that was bound to generate debate among residents. The decision was on the ban of the sale of alcohol at the city’s parks and gardens. The FCTA also activated the hitherto loosely imposed environmental law that requires parks to close down by 7.00pm.

According to the FCT authorities, the decision was taken because parks and gardens that were created to provide residents and visitors a means of escape from the drudgery and monotony of indoor life in their offices and homes, were being used as hideouts and meeting points by criminals and other social misfits.

From muted grumblings and passive protests, the debate is now becoming more open and agitated. Some newspapers, including the sister publication of this one, the Daily Trust, have even ran editorials on the matter. There have also been commentaries both in the print and electronic media by individuals expressing opinion for or against; or in some cases taking a middle course. In its editorial of last Friday, 13/03/09, the Daily Trust took what may be termed the summary of those who choose the sober, middle-course view of the FCTA decision. The paper accepted the exigencies that had compelled the FCTA to take the decision it took, but then added: “The development of a new capital city in a developing country such as Nigeria, where 70 percent of the population is poor, should be made to accommodate the socio-economic realities of her citizens. It is not everyone who lives in the city who can afford to eat at the restaurants of the five-star hotels available within the metropolis. Even modern cities in the developed world have designated places where residents of the city who cannot afford the expensive services in exclusive restaurants and night-clubs, may wish to go and take their meals regularly. But the implementation of the Abuja master plan does not seem to recognise or appreciate this salient reality. The major streets of Abuja for instance, lack kiosks, canteens or rest stops where a pedestrian, after a long walk on the street, could stop over to have a cold drink or tea. Since these realities are left out in the master plan, Daily Trust calls on the implementors of the plan to find a way of building them into it. It would do no harm to the beauty of the city or its cleanliness if the AEPB could provide an area, within the city, specifically to accommodate the existence of these modest restaurants.”

Before then, Professor Okello Oculli, a well known academic and the Executive Director of Africa Vision 525 Initiative had written an article on the same issue, published on page 12 of the Daily Trust edition of 11/03/09. Although Professor Oculli was my teacher at ABU, I had never known him to struggle so painfully to say in a thousand words what he could have said in less than ten words. He transported his readers from Abuja to Tanzania and then to India and back to Abuja again. He also took us through Time Travel, racing us back to 1965 and then back to 2009; juxtaposing politics with architecture, philosophy, history and economics. Very, very professorial.

But for all that Oculli was too sensitive, too cautious to say what was bothering him. He did manage though, in the very last sentence, to convey an idea of what he was trying not to say: “In a multi-ethnic, multi-religious and multi-racial society, such mindsets are short distances away from violence and inter-group conflict.”

Translation: placing a ban on the sale of alcohol at Abuja parks and gardens may be seen as an act of intolerance that could lead to protests; which could in turn lead to violent conflict among the many ethnic, religious and racial groups in “a society like Abuja”. If this translation were to be broken down even further, it would come down to this: due to recent happenings around the country, a ban on the sale and or consumption of alcohol for whatever reason is usually given a religious rather than a social interpretation; so Professor Oculli, for instance, and those who share his perception (presumably those who go to the parks to relax with a beer or two and of course those with dark intents), see the FCTA decision as an imposition of a religious law in a city that is rightly seen as the embodiment of the country’s diversity, the melting pot as it were, where everybody is supposed to feel at home.; a geographical entity where secularism should be given complete expression.

Unless we choose to be mischievous, I think by and large Abuja has been just that. If anything threatens the peace and social harmony that prevails in Abuja, it is not the law banning the sale of alcohol in parks and gardens; rather it is the evil that the law aims to fight that is the greatest threat to Abuja and its residents. That evil is the rising crime wave in and around the capital city. The FCTA had taken pains to explain the reason behind its decision which is simply that the activities at those parks—the loud music, the women, the drinking, the complete party atmosphere—had become conducive for the breeding of crime and criminal tendencies that can no longer be ignored. The police authorities even went further to explain that most criminal operations are hatched at some of those parks and are in fact the launch pads for many of those criminal operations. To ignore this obvious cause for concern at the expense of our personal life style, is to say the very least, selfish.

However, this is not to ignore the reservations of those that are genuinely concerned about their individual rights being tempered with. But such people should know that their rights are fundamental and inalienable only if such rights do not encroach on the rights of others or constitute a nuisance to society. To turn parks that are meant for honest, peace-loving citizens (some of them as family units) to relax and find serenity into places of revealing and criminal meetings clearly violates the rights of others.

What may be needed is for the FCTA to directly address the fears and reservations of those whose concerns are genuine. This can be achieved through town hall and neighbourhood meetings and increased media sensitization. It would also help if religious leaders of all creeds are given the necessary platform to explain the position of their faiths on the policy; as the impression being created is that only one religion, Islam, is against drinking of alcohol when in reality other major religion with the large followership, Christianity, equally abhors drunkenness and similar vices.

The other concerns that have to do with the provision of roadside kiosks, restaurants and other conveniences for the low income and for those who come into the city from neighbouring towns, are valid and should be addressed by the FCTA. As for those public commentators and human rights advocates who try to hide behind civil liberty to insinuate cynical interpretations of a well-meaning intent, they would be serving society better if they could constitute themselves into pressure groups and monitor the promises that the new FCT Minister has made. Senator Adamu Aliero had, for instance, promised to make the troublesome Abuja-Kubwa-Zuba highway into a ten-lane highway; make Abuja metro line a priority and open up two or three additional residential areas in the same class with Asokoro and Maitama. He also promised to improve infrastructure in the satellite towns. These are worthy causes even though some of us would still insist he revisits the Abuja Boulevard project since it would cost government next to nothing. It would be more honourable to monitor progress in those areas than to deliberately substitute solution for problem and vice versa.