In all of the developed areas of the City, the Phase I used to be the area that had the maximum compliance with the Abuja Masterplan. But, that was prior to the advent of Nyesom Wike as the FCT Minister. The widespread flood event of last Saturday 15th August 2026 will go down in history as the first time flooding of such monumental scale ever occurred within the Phase I for the City. Sadly, we are afraid to state, that it was only the beginning.
Abuja used to be considered as a laboratory of sort, by the Town Planning professionals. These were due to the achievements made in the planning, implementation and protection of the plan through the enforcement activities of the City Development Control Department. Unfortunately, whatever was achieved in the past has now been eroded within the last three years.
Violations of land use in monumental and mindboggling scale with impunity had never been witnessed before in the history of the nation’s capital. The targets in Phase I are the areas earmarked as green.
Because, all the areas earmarked for use as residential and commercial developments were exhausted, with no room for the creation of new layouts. In the others, phase II, III and IV, where creation of very large areas could be maneuvered, hundreds of hectares, more than the size of a whole district, were created and allocated to lone developers. Many unpleasant things are happening in the City lands administration.
Meanwhile, all those green areas that were subject of violations in the Phase I, apart from being flood plains, and buffer zones for stream channels are also corridors for underground service lines. These include water pipelines, sewers and storm water drainages. Physical developments on land over these infrastructures would result in their rupture, collapse and blockages underground. We mentioned these severally, but the FCT Administration turned deaf ears.
Also, since the beginning of the year, before the commencement of the rains, NiMet advised State Governments to clear drainages and relocate communities in high risk floodplains. The FCT is among the areas to be affected by the devastating floods as predicted.
According to the tradition in the FCT, with the approach of each rainy season, the Facilities Management and Maintenance Department clears and desilt all drainages within the city and environs, as a proactive measure against floods occurrence. While the Development Control Department clears and remove all developments made against the city development regulations with specific focus on those that would likely be along waterways, liable to creation of floods.
These are statutory functions of these Departments. Their annual budgets are provided under the Abuja Metropolitan Management Council, with the Coordinator as the head. It does not require any Ministerial directive, so long as the provision is made in the budget. The only challenge that would prevent the execution, would be when the Minister refuse to fund the budget and refuse to provide the required overhead cost. These would obviously explain why it has to wait for the Minister to purportedly issue the directive within this week, for the commencement of the removal of the developments that are obstructing waterways. A directive issued after the occurrence of the disaster is akin to a man crying when his head is already off.
Let us not forget, that not quite long ago, despite the warning by NiMet for State Governments to clear all drainages and relocate communities in high risk floodplains, the FCT Minister, on the contrary, placed embargo on demolition. The fact is that if the Minister is to direct for the implementation of the NiMet’sadvice, the casualties would be the beneficiaries of his allocations on green areas in almost all the Districts across the City.
On several occasions we wrote and it was ignored, that “Focus on floods prevention are more on good land-use planning and stewardship rather than large engineering solutions”. In any case the Departments responsible for managing the city are adequately capable of living up to their expectations, but, subject to funding of their budgets.
Obviously, the relevant Departments were not funded, the land use regulations were violated with impunity, and warning by NiMet were taken for granted. Whatever directive the FCT Minister would give is tantamount to shedding of crocodile tears, because it will not stop the occurrence of future floods, if he did not revoke the allocations he made on green areas and service corridors around the City.
