Federal Capital Territory Minister Nyesom Wike has appealed to President Bola Tinubu to intervene on the completion of the long abandoned Abuja Millennium Tower, whose cost has ballooned to between 300 and 400 billion naira from an original estimate of 61 billion naira.

Speaking during an inspection of ongoing projects in Abuja, Wike said it would be financially unwise for the Federal Capital Territory administration to fund the project alone given its budgetary constraints and other critical infrastructure needs, urging the president to treat the tower, first awarded in 2005 under President Olusegun Obasanjo, as a national tourism project rather than a territorial responsibility. He said taking on such a huge financial commitment could force the abandonment of every other project in Abuja, and attributed the tower’s ballooning costs to years of neglect and shifting priorities, while confirming that discussions with the president on reconsidering it as a national project remain ongoing.