The slogan attached to Abuja as ‘The Centre of Unity’, or ‘A No-man’s Land’, is not unconnected to the original concept and the aspiration of the founding fathers for the creation of a new Federal Capital for Nigeria. Many people, unfortunately, at times, including those charged with the responsibility of implementation and protection of that dream of the founding fathers, display ignorance of the meanings of these terms.
In a simple term Abuja must be understood to be ‘A Symbol of Unity’ for Nigeria. Hence its administration must not be saddled on just any person that seeks for the position, but those with the proven quality and capacity to implement the plan in order to safeguard the unity of our dear nation. One of the objectives was to have a comfortable and healthy base for urban development. Thus, there must be deliberate effort to ensure harmony with nature and also ensure ecological balance.
While preparing the master plan, it had been identified that the major shortcomings in the past plannings for Nigerian cities was the failure to recognise and accommodate the indigenous patterns of urban organisation and adaptation already present in the country. Nigeria has an important urban tradition. The tradition includes how people lived both in cities with ancient roots dating back centuries, and in new towns created during the colonial periods. The new capital city of Nigeria must preserve and build on that which is unique and valuable in Nigerian’s urban tradition.
The plan was made for all the people. Also, the varied ways in which Nigerian cities evolved and related was not ignored. These are the Savannah cities in the north, the forest cities in the south and the new towns, or GRA’s introduced by the colonial administration. The African neighbourliness, brotherhood and family ties, which made us identify our close and distant relations, is unique, best and incomparable to any foreign culture.
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The cultural pluralism of Nigeria suggests that the city plan must simultaneously permit the different segments of the Nigerian population to maintain an important degree of continuity with their social and cultural traditions while encouraging, where appropriate, amalgamation of the various streams of urban tradition and lifestyle into a new and common modern Nigerian urban context.
An important ingredient in the development of the master plan, therefore, has been a review of the relationships that have developed between social and physical aspects in existing Nigerian cities. Three key urban planning and design issues were considered. These are overall urban form, role of central public spaces and organisation of residential areas.
One of the development guidelines issued to International Planning Associates (IPA) by the FCDA was to have a city that will be permitted to grow to a maximum population of approximately three million, after which, population growth will be accommodated in satellite towns. Thus, IPA was left with the task of determining the total land size to accommodate the population, various land uses and land budget, in line with the international best practice.
All human endeavours have standard requirements. The structure of the Nigerian traditional cities from the savanna to the forest region bears similar pattern and recognises the traditional kinship ties, with neighbourhood population ranging from 1,000 to 1,200 among those cities surveyed, where both the rich and the poor, the strong and the weak co-habit in peace.
The result of this analysis led to the adoption of the neighbourhood concept by the IPA, in the planning of Abuja. The neighbourhood population, ranging from 4,000 to 5,000 is the smallest unit in planning of the capital city, while the neighbourhood centre is its nucleus.
The neighbourhood boundaries are defined by arterial roads, while neighbourhood facilities include nursery and primary schools, family clinic, shopping centre, community hall, postal agency and police charge office. It is expected that the residents obtain their basic needs without traversing across major arterial roads. The services at the neighbourhood level are primary, now provided by both the public and private sectors. Typical example of this set up could be found in the first neighbourhoods developed in the city. These are the Area 1 and Area 2 neighbourhood centres in the Garki District.
Calculations were made for all the sectors. These are residential, health, education, security, commercial, industrial, recreational and the city greening components. All, have their various and individual standard requirements in line with the international best practice. Any change that would tamper with the calculations, will distort the spatial arrangements and the standard plan for achieving that needed city of symbol of Nigeria’s aspiration for unity and greatness.
No any FCT minister should agree to any proposal that distorts the spatial arrangements of all these sectors in the plan. Rather, the promoters of those evil proposals must be chastised. Succumbing to such is tantamount to dereliction on his statutory responsibility to defend the plan.
To be continued.
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