It is a great pity that the fuss over the move to relocate departments of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) and the Ministry of Aviation only once more exacerbated the national divide between the South and the North. It shouldn’t have been so. Abuja has been everybody’s baby since its birth in the mid-1970s. Due to the location of Lagos in one extreme corner of the country, its sheer congestion and notorious traffic holdups, there was a national consensus to move the federal capital to a central and more conducive location in the hinterland.
What is the present-day Abuja fitted the bill and was so declared the federal capital territory. Since then, all hands from all parts of the country worked toward its actualization. Ranging from General Murtala Muhammed, the Head of State who made the declaration, to his successor, General Olusegun Obasanjo who laid down the initial plans assisted by so many technocrats from all parts of the country, Abuja rose to be a truly federal estate having all within it. General Ibrahim Babangida, Head of State from 1985, started the mass movement of the federal bureaucracy from Lagos to Abuja in the early 1990s which continued unabated till the turn of the millennium.
Now, so many years after, with most of the federal bureaucracy out of Lagos, we had expected the position of Abuja as the federal capital to be securely a done deal. However, the news of these relocations, coming out of the blues, has taken all aback. Maybe it is the shock of the announcements that prompted some NGOs to rally against the planned relocations. It is a pity that the leaders of the Arewa Consultative Forum and Northern Elders Forum who came out against the relocations were perceived to be in defence of Abuja because it is located in the North. Far from it. They might have been looking at it from the viewpoint that the country had worked hard to bring the federal government to the centre within reach for everyone from every part of the country and it would be a disservice for revisionist Lagos-centric elements in the Bola Tinubu cabinet to attempt to put the hands of the clock back.
Even Senator Mohammed Ali Ndume, who has been unnecessarily vilified for being particularly vociferous in this debate, must be understood within the context of how the constituency he is representing would be impacted. The Borno South Senatorial District that Ndume is representing is one of the farthest places from Abuja, which normally the constituents find difficult to access. Now you can imagine what his constituents would be facing when federal departments are relocated to a much farther Lagos.
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The movement of the federal bureaucracy from Lagos to Abuja has never been without its problems. Ministers who served in the 1990s would tell you horror stories of encounters with their staff during the exercise, despite all the government did to cushion the hard effects. Abuja was a developing settlement with all the deprivations and staff based in Lagos fought tooth and nail to remain there. In the 1990s housing for staff was still short in Abuja, standard schools were still not readily available for children and social life in Abuja was incomparable to what Lagos offered. Yet, the ministers persisted and were dogged in the pursuit of the movement from Lagos.
These efforts paid off handsomely. I guess close to half of the Nigerian population now has no idea that Lagos was once the capital of the nation. It, therefore, begets the reason why, after all these years, some parts of the federal bureaucracy are heading back to Lagos. It is even more ridiculous for FAAN of the Ministry of Aviation which was one of the last agencies to be brought to Abuja to now return to Lagos.
I watched the Minister of Aviation, Festus Keyamo on Channels Television’s Politics Today programme, despite the soft questioning approach by the host, Seun Okinbaloye, he didn’t come off convincing on why FAAN had to return to Lagos. His principal reason was that FAAN left empty offices to come to be tenants in Abuja. I expected the host to ask the minister what plans he had to build an office for FAAN in Abuja. The host never did, but allowed the minister to continue on the defeatist trajectory of sending FAAN back to Lagos.
It seems there is a deliberate effort to haemorrhage Abuja to stuff Lagos. If this is not stopped, the relocation of federal agencies from Abuja will soon turn into a deluge of agencies heading back to Lagos. For starters, the Ministry of Petroleum Resources will reason that most of the headquarters of the major oil companies are still based in Lagos and for all intents and purposes should be close to them. What would follow would be the loss of the NNPC and its associated agencies from Abuja. Similar reasons would be propounded by some other ministries that have set their eyes on Lagos, and with the sympathetic listening ears in the Presidency, they will get their way.
If care is not taken Abuja will soon be dried up.
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