Relocation to Abuja was an attempt to bring the Nation"s capital to the Door-step of Northerners that which they have since achieved. The relocation of Nigeria"s capital to Abuja has come and gone but the politics played by the North together with the bad effects which by far outweighs the decision will continue to live with Nigerians till "thy kingdom come". Contrary to popular perception then, the setting up of the hasty panel that looked into this decision was an attempt to situate the Nation"s seat of power in the northern region.
The panel set up by the then Northern oligarchy led by the military cleverly gave the Nigerians and the world at large an understanding that everything was wrong with Lagos as the capital and that another capital which would eventually correct this impression would better be situated in the heart of the northern region of Nigeria and surprisingly prominent Yoruba personalities amongst whom were the Late Justice Akinola Aguda and Tai Solarin were made members of the panel set up to fulfill this arrangement.
In the views of these panel members, certain anomalies compelled the relocation of the capital of Nigeria. These included the city"s small land area, and consequently congestion, which according to them makes further development of the state utterly difficult, the coastal location of the city, lack of centralization of the city as the capital of the Nation, Security reason - Lagos due to its location was vulnerable to attack from the ocean, because of its location at the edge of the country, it"s not very convenient and expensive for other Nigerians to come to Lagos. (These very reasons are laughable today) Lagos belongs to the Yorubas; one of the major tribes in Nigeria (If Lagos belongs to the Yorubas to whom does Abuja belong) among others too numerous to mention here.
Although Lagos, with a land area of 3, 577 square kilometers, represents only 0.4 per cent of Nigeria"s land area, the city hosts an estimated 12 million inhabitants or 10 per cent of the nation"s population and still accommodates more people perhaps on daily basis such is the wonder of Lagos even at rejection as the capital of the Federation by the Northerners.
Given the United Nation"s projection that Lagos geographically has the potential to become the third most populous mega-polis by 2015 and the fact that Lagos remains the economic as well as the cultural capital of the Nation are the initiators of this relocation to Abuja not mistaken? From the "days of John the Baptist" to the years of the British colonial government in power Lagos has been "Home for all" and is more geographically blessed and prepared for this than any other state or region in the nation including Abuja. Let there be no mistake about this.
It is incontrovertible that every Nigerian feels better at home in Lagos than in any other place. It is equally a fact that there are many non natives of Lagos today who have lost cognizance of there home towns because they have spent almost their entire lives in the state. I bet that everyone will admit that more people today speak Yoruba than any other Nigerian language. This is the influence of Lagos.
Historically, Lagos is widely believed to be an Awori town but other migrants have washed into Lagos, especially the Benin City natives (who settled at Enu-Owa, the Saro (Sierra Leonean) and the predominantly Brazilian, Aguda returnees settled mainly in Olowogbowo/Offin area along the northern foreshore of the Lagos Marina and the Brazilian Quarters. The Tapa (Nupe) mistaken for the Hausa, first settled at "Ago" (Hausa Lines) in 1860 but later relocated to Obalende where there permanent homes were found. The Igbo are today known to occupy the shops of all the major markets in the state today.
Any human complete with the five senses will easily tell that Abuja is very uninviting and that those who set out to change the course of geographical endowments should have realized that by nature, the human society is unpredictably difficult and complex and the Nigerian environment is not different from this given its extremely volatile, fragile and complex socio-economic nature relocation to Abuja was therefore rather unnecessary.
The world over except those who relocated Nigeria" capital has realized that the growth, survival and viability of societies are dependent on the competence of good human resource and experience so it is apt to ask ourselves what resources Abuja is naturally endowed with. Those Ministry workers forced on journey to the city in the years of Babangida to begin a new life are still returning to Lagos. Many of them left without their family members. Despite the well physical and excellent planning, Abuja still strikes everyone except our big politicians most from the north as a place of suffering where one spends too much and earns very little, a city made for only the Rich. Abuja is nothing but a city of ministries and papers.
Too much of the nation"s resources from the Niger Delta had been poured into hurriedly erecting a new seat of government by the military government of Northern extraction who had hidden agenda. Most other parts of Nigeria were simply ignored so that Abuja could coalesce from a dream into reality. Money that should have been invested in electricity to power the whole country was poured down the drain to the detriment of other regions of the country. Abuja is obviously a misplaced priority as money that should have been put to more urgent use in the areas of healthcare, education and so on, was diverted through wasteful means. Murtala began it all and Babangida completed it all.
We failed to ask ourselves why all the public structures already in Lagos had to be duplicated in Abuja in the name of creating another capital for the northern region. This clearly was not risk to be undertaken by a society like Nigeria seen as one of poorest nations of the world. Today, the former National Assembly complex, The secretariat, Tafawa Balewa square and other public buildings lay neglected with Lagos itself lying in utmost neglect as a result of abandonment by the Federal Government.
Abuja may remain the pride of the North but to the rest of the nation, the mere idea of relocation of the capital from Lagos is nothing but an economic and monumental waste only meant to further or serve the interest of the few individuals. Suffice it to mean that societies cannot be built overnight. Those behind this idea of relocation presented a situation which ushered in lingering economic crisis in Nigeria which in a way depleted the economy of the nation. Abuja was foisted on the people of Nigeria. Hundreds of billions of dollars were committed into building Abuja Yet no government in this nation can factiously tell us how much that was spent to build to build the city.
The government kicked the Gwari inhabitants off their land and moved the capital to Abuja because it was searching for a central place in the North. Today we are asking whether Abuja should be classified as a state or a capital city, instead of the mayoralty that it is. Again we ask ourselves whether Abuja is the capital of Nigeria or Northern Nigeria. Nigeria remains the country in the world with its capital in the centre. The 3 most populated countries in the world China, India and the United States all have their capitals located at the edge like Lagos. The 3 biggest countries in the world by landmass Russia, Canada, and the United States have their respective capitals located at the edge like Lagos. The once location of Nigeria"s capital at the edge followed careful thought and consideration by the much wiser British than our later military junta only out to fulfill the carefully orchestrated agenda of the North.
In the same Capital of Northern Nigeria (Abuja) we hear of ban on public drinking of alcohol, and the setting up of a committee to enforce ban on smoking in public places in Abuja from June1, 2008 (see The punch, May 3, 2008) The same way we have heard of the ban on commercial motorcycles in the city so that we are once again asking if Abuja is going sharia the same way its other Northern states went.
Although the capital has been shifted to Abuja, Lagos will remain the capital of Nigeria in our minds considering its importance in the economic activities of the country