Now we have a bright new capital whose construction has ruined the country financially because of the corruption that surrounds the entire project from planning to execution. It is only in Abuja that people have become billionaires by using their positions in government to acquire acres and hectares of public land which were then sold at humongous prices to others whose sources of income are not ascertainable . Estates have been developed by shady characters who charge exorbitant rents or leave the houses locked up unused while the middle level civil servants have no where to stay .
One cynic said half of the houses in Abuja are vacant! The master plan of the city has been so distorted many times that each new administration starts by bulldozing buildings built without approval . It is a moot question if we have made a success of our new capital in Abuja. The city was planned for about a million people, it is now six million and still growing . The insurgency in the northeast of the country and in Plateau and Kaduna states has added to the unplanned migration to the city of people in search of security .The infrastructure cannot cope with the crowd of villagers not used to urban life .
Surrounding the city are unplanned settlements running for miles but unseen by casual visitors. The cost of land or housing is beyond the reach of even the middle class who have no access to the public treasury . Abuja is an artificial city without an urban soul and politics is killing the place whose residents and power brokers are totally disconnected from the rest of the country. The problem with Abuja and its future lies in the belly of time . What will happen in five years time to its ten lane expressway running for about fifty kilometers from the airport to the city when Nigeria’s oil would not bring in the kind of money our government is used to? What will happen to its infrastructure when those with huge estates or their successors who are not paying taxes are asked to cough out capital gains tax? How does a huge city survive without industries ? Many of the inhabitants are traders and influence peddlers who have no idea about the sustainability of their city.
The thirty states structure of the country is generally known to be economically unsustainable. Workers are not being paid in many of the states. In spite of this it is an incontrovertible fact that the capitals of these unwieldy states have witnessed some planning and development. It is not unheard of to see gaudy mansions in the middle of nowhere especially in the Eastern part of the country or in some of the state capitals. Some of the governors’ official Residences are bigger than Aso Rock ,the Residence of the president of Nigeria. New roads have been constructed in some of the state capitals . Some have even witnessed urban renewal involving pulling down of ancient houses, burial grounds and shrines .
Lagos has witnessed beautification with flowers and greening with exotic flowers and palm trees .Some of these examples have been copied by other states and there seems to be a race among state capitals of which of them will have the longest traffic flyover.! As uncoordinated and chaotic as our planning may be, there’s no doubt that there is no African country that has spread developments this widely . What we need to do is to improve on our infrastructure, build better roads , rail lines, airports and better communication to link up our cities seamlessly and support this development with massive industrialization and diversification of the economy . This will allow people to stay in their states instead of migrating to Lagos and other cities in search of ever elusive jobs !This is of urgent necessity and it is a matter of life and death in view of our galloping population which is projected to make us the third most populous country after India 1.4 billion , China 1.3 billion and Nigeria 1billion people in 2050.
Ironically the south east without a history of urbanization may do better than any of the other parts of Nigeria in modernization of its built environment . This is because apart from Port Harcourt, Aba and Onitsha the towns there are relatively small and may be easily redeveloped. In fact in recent times Calabar the capital of Cross River State is assuming the accolade of the most livable city in Nigeria .The people of the Eastern part of Nigeria are also used to living close to nature in the bush and the spatial culture of their settlements would lend itself to small planned towns . These communities can then provide a paradigm of development for the whole area. The north and the west are not going to be easily redeveloped. The towns like Ibadan ,Kano ogbomosho, Kaduna , Katsina, Ilorin, Ilesha , oyo , Oshogbo, and Maiduguri are too large and over populated . To pull some of the areas down will cost dislocation of families and prohibitive amount of money to rebuild and may lead to rebellion. Ibadan ,Kano and Ogbomosho are over one million . Yet we do not have the technology to make these cities work . The best country in the world in terms of urban development is Germany . With all their know how only Berlin and Hamburg have more than one million people . That is why the country is regarded as a model green country. It takes enormous money and technological know how to run a country efficiently and successfully. There is going to be less and less money in Nigeria because of advancing technology that may make hydrocarbons Export on which our economy depends, unattractive as energy source within the next few years . This will present Nigeria with a challenge unless our governments take the bull by the horn and make citizens pay adequately for municipal services . Even If the money is available we do not have the technology to run modern cities . It is a no win situation. Already sixty or more percent of our people in the Southwest are living in cities and by 2050 ,80 percent of Nigerians will be living in the largely unplanned cities. The import of this is that we must find solution to this massive urbanization before it is too late . The obvious noticeable result of this is that the urban environment in the South West seems the most degraded in today’s Nigeria partly because of bad governance , lack of foresight and systematic planning and of course the pressure of population growth in the cities due to rural urban migration.For example the city of Ibadan described by a visitor from Canada in 1970 as “the biggest slum he has ever seen “could have been better than that this if the government were conscious of its responsibility. The opening up some outskirts of the city by the expressway from Lagos to Oyo could have been accompanied by well laid out plan of development rather than the continuation of the antediluvian ways of building houses any where spaces were available without respect for town planning regulations which were obeyed in their breaches. The erstwhile active and efficient Town planning department of the 1960s seemed to have gone to sleep or have become moribund in the city of Ibadan .The apparent death of town planning is exemplified in Ibadan by the fact that as soon as expressways are constructed in the city ,unplanned markets usually spring up across the very motorways to make nonsense of such planned easy movement of vehicles .This dynamic chaos has led to rapid growth and attraction to the city where as far as town planning is concerned all things illegal are permissible! Added to this is relative peace in the region and consequent migration from the distressed areas of Nigeria in the Niger Delta, the land hungry eastern Nigeria and the northern part of Nigeria afflicted by religious violence . Nevertheless, the northern cities are faring better because of the strong political hold on the country by northerners who can divert resources there to ameliorate the decaying urban environment. Unless there is a restructuring or devolution of power to release more funds to the periphery in the states or regions it is going to be downward spiral for the urban areas of Nigeria as a whole and the more urbanized west and north of Nigeria will be more exposed to the inevitable urban decay.
In conclusion unlike for example in France , Italy and Spain we cannot see any unique Nigerian architecture emerging in our towns and cities . This may be because the concept of Nigeria has remained a geographical expression, if this is so ,we can at least begin to see emerge Yoruba ,Igbo , Hausa architectural designs just as we see in our arts and crafts .It is of course true that modern architecture in Nigeria has a relatively recent history . But it does not seem the voice of architects is heard when new estates are planned . It is doubtful if the body of architects made much or any contributions to the planning and development of Abuja. It seems Nigerian architects define their profession narrowly to mean designing houses , colleges , institutions and offices but not the built urban environment. The architectural association needs to be a little bit more vociferous in urban planning and development in Nigeria as was the case in other known civilizations like those of Greece and Rome. In the meantime we as individuals and our governments should embark on tree planting in our cities in consonance with world wide demand for environmental enhancement to mitigate the effect of global warming occasioning climate change .Nigerian cities through tree and flower planting can be made beautiful and environmentally sustainable. We do not need to wait for foreign aid or technical expertise to plant as our fore fathers were doing in our distant past.
