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Designed by Kenzo Tange; completed 1981

In 1976 the Nigerian state authorities believed that a new federal capital city would facilitate the creation of a “federal character” and thus resolve the problem of nepotism and relieve ethnic tensions among the 250 cultural groups that constitute the Nigerian nation. Abuja and its architecture, it was believed, would also remove the colonial identity that the erstwhile capital city of Lagos was thought to bestow on the Nigerian people.

As a result, the role of Lagos as the federal capital of Nigeria has been in question from 1960, when Nigeria became independent, to 9 August 1975, when General Murutala Mohammed set up an eight-member Committee on the Location of the Federal Capital of Nigeria. The task of the committee was to review the multiple roles of Lagos as the federal capital of Nigeria, the capital of the state of Lagos, and the economic capital of the country.

The committee concluded that a new federal capital would improve Nigeria’s national security, enhance Nigerian interior development, encourage the decentralization of economic infrastructures from Lagos, and enhance the development of an indigenous Nigerian building culture and industry. Finally, the new capital would emphasize Nigeria’s emergence from the civil war of 1967–70 as a more united, stable, and confident country. Nigerian lawmakers who shared the opinions of the committee justified the idea of developing a new federal capital by suggesting that there existed a fundamental need for a place where all Nigerians could come together on an equal basis to help foster national unity. Moreover, advocates of a new federal capital city raised the problems of overcrowding and lack of land for future expansion at Lagos as well as the existence of severe social inequality in the colonial cities of Nigeria. As a result, Abuja was conceived as a place that symbolized Nigeria’s autonomy from British colonization, urban segregation, and a federal character that all Nigerians could share in regardless of ethnic heritage. According to the committee and the International Planning Association (IPA), the new capitol would provide “a balanced development focus for the nation”. They chose Japanese modernist Kenzo Tange, a protégé of Le Corbusier, as the principal architect for the city plan.

The federal government of Nigeria produced a schedule for implementing the committee’s recommendations on 4 February 1976. Decree No. 6 established for Nigeria a Federal Capital Territory—an African version of the District of Columbia—a neutral ground where a Nigerian federal character would be developed for the good of all Nigerians. The government took an 8,000-square-kilometer parcel (more than twice the size of the state of Lagos) out of three minority states. Abuja is located on the Gwagwa Plains in the middle of Nigeria; its high elevation and numerous hills contribute to a year-round pleasant climate, one of the major attractions that influenced the committee to select the site.

Abuja was conceived as a city for three million people to be developed in 20 years, and its master plan symbolized the themes of democracy and Nigerian unity. Construction began at Abuja in 1981 under the leadership of President Shehu Shagari (who was later deposed), who was anxious to move from Lagos to the new Federal Capital Territory.

The Nigerian authorities of state insisted that Aso Hill must be the most prominent element within the Federal Capital Territory. Aso Hill is a huge granite outcrop (1,300 feet high) that dominates the landscape of Abuja and its vicinity visually and physically, giving the city a natural east-west axis. Moreover, creating the image of a democratic landscape that emblemizes the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria (patterned after the United States’ checks-and-balances system of government) was also an integral part of the Abuja urban design scheme. As a result, a democratic shrine called the Three Arms Zone was created at the foot of Aso Hill, making it the focal point of the city and the locus of power of the federal government of Nigeria. Abuja’s Three Arms Zone is one kilometer in diameter, and the buildings of the National Assembly, the Presidential Palace, and the Supreme Court are located within it. From Aso Hill in the east end of the city, one moves through the ceremonial Abuja National Mall, which is also patterned after that of Washington, D.C. However, the axial view of the mall is flanked by high-rise federal office buildings on both sides, terminating first at the quintuple towers of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation and finally at the National Stadium in the west of the city.

Although the Abuja master plan also aspires to position the city as a major pan-African commercial, financial, and political center, it is dominated by a rhetoric of Nigerian unity, national identity, and democracy. As a result, it is characterized by unresolved tensions between its nationalist themes, the intentions of the emergent Nigerian intelligentsia who inherited political power from Britain, and the intentions of the architect. First, Tange’s fundamental concept for Abuja’s master plan resembles the plan for Tokyo. One could argue that Tange’s plan to incorporate the Japanese modernism of Tokyo represented an attempt to meet the needs of Nigerian national identity; but concerns remained as to whether the architect’s uniform design for the monumental federal buildings reflected the interests of the emergent Nigerian elite who inherited political power from Britain, or whether the new structure contributed to the erasure of certain ethnically based social boundaries. The insistence of the federal government of Nigeria that Aso Hill be the most prominent object in the Federal Capital Territory suggests that it was adopting an ancient “pagan” ritual site (Aso Hill) as a means of reinventing a Nigerian “federal character,” something quite different from the version of modernity that Tange envisioned. Advocates of the Aso Hill complex envisioned it as a sign of stability, nationality, and cultural myth making in the vibrant, new capital city.

Military dictators interpreted Abuja’s master plan as a document that required the isolation of the Three Arms Zone (as a shrine to power) from the rest of the city to make it inaccessible for public gathering. The river that runs down the foot of Aso Hill forms a moat between the central part of the city and the Zone. This moat can be crossed only by bridge, and the bridge is designed to be easily barricaded in time of civil disturbances. Hence, marching to the shrine of power, as is the case in most democratic societies, has been neutralized by the manner in which the master plan was interpreted and implemented. Any march in the city will stop at the national mall in the central district. This outcome was not by accident but by the careful intentions of the military dictators who built Abuja and who deliberately chose to ignore existing traditional urban examples in Nigeria. The ideology that privileges a landscape that can forge national unity in Nigeria will face several practical challenges with the national assembly and the civilian president, who took over power on 29 May 1999 after 15 years of continuous military dictatorship.