Complexities of land use planning and nation building in Nigeria's new capital city of Abuja

Abstract

Policy implementation tends to be a nightmare in the South as they mostly end up unimplemented. New capital cities of the South also reflect this nightmare. In Nigeria’s new capital city of Abuja, master plan making is considered of intrinsic importance toward promoting national identity in a diverse ethnic society. However, despite a history with series of master plan making spanning over 3 decades, implementing the land uses captured in these plans tend to be difficult. This thesis explores the complexities that underline land use implementation in Abuja’s Central Area. It seeks to make sense of the problems undermining implementation in Abuja’s Central Area. But beyond that the thesis explores the Western notions that have gone into Post-Independence nation building in new capital cities. Investigating these concerns draw insights from a multi-disciplinary body of knowledge. From policy implementation, rational planning process and action-based notions of implementation, relational planning, political economy, post-colonial critique of planning in the South, nationalism, and a wide range of themes on national capital cities. Using these insights, I develop a framework of exploring these concerns of the thesis through an inductive and qualitative process. The thesis’ findings center around what I refer to as plan gravity. Plan gravity is the privileging of Abuja’s master plans as not only being the most important thing in Abuja, but the answer to the aspirations that Abuja as a new national capital city seeks to achieve. But the privileging leads to the marginalisation and neglect of other factors that are vital to implementation; for instance the planning system under which these plans are expected to be implemented. Again, despite the privileging, implementation is undermined by a multiplicity of actors’ interests, power play and politics, the influx of global mega projects into Abuja’s Central Area, and the kinds of Western knowledge that have driven nation building in Abuja.