Nigeria

Origin of the City

Mr Justice Aguda, who headed a panel to consider the case for a new capital, reported in 1975 that “It is our belief that one way of forging the idea of unity of this nation is by building a capital city which will belong to every Nigerian.” A Federal Capital Development Authority was set up and in 1976 a territory identified in the geographical centre of the country. In the following year, the Authority commissioned International Planning Associates, a consortium of three American firms, to select the precise site for the capital within the territory, to propose a regional plan, and to outline a master plan for the city, with a manual of design and development standards. They recommended a site in the north of the designated area where the open savannah was dominated by the steep-sided granite face of the Aso hills. Their master plan conceived a monumental avenue, running roughly SW-NE and pointing directly at the highest point of the hills, with a parliament building and national monument close to the hills and with the major state and civic buildings fronting the main avenue. The Japanese architect, Kenzo Tange, was appointed to mastermind the major public buildings, and senior staff of the Milton Keynes Development Corporation became town planning advisers to the development authority. A great deal of infrastructure and construction work took place in the early 1980s but was practically halted by a military coup in late-1983 and proceeded only slowly for the next three years.

Sites for Permanent Buildings

It was always expected that the Ministry of External Affairs, and therefore the embassies and high commissions, would move from Lagos fairly late in the process of establishing the new capital. An embassy area was designated near the ministries and the diplomatic missions in Lagos were invited in 1983 to apply for allocations of land. The FCO, planning for a high commission in Abuja of 35 UK-based staff, bid for a single compound of 20 acres but was told that head of mission residences should be separate from the offices and that staff accommodation would have to be found from private developers in the planned residential zones of the city. After much debate in the late-1980s about whether European Community nations should and could have co-located sites, the Nigerians decided against co-location. They also refused permission for missions to establish liaison offices in Abuja even though they announced in 1989 that missions should be established in Abuja by the end of 1992. By 1990, the FCO had accepted a site allocated for offices at Plots 315 and 316 (1.8 hectares combined) and for a residence at Plot 1034 (1.06 hectares). [Is this plot on Gana Street in Maitama?] Since foreign governments were not permitted to hold freehold land, the FCO signed the two 99-year leases from the Federal Capital Development Authority on 25 July 1990.

The Ministry of External Affairs then surprised everybody by bringing forward its own move to Abuja to autumn 1990. The Nigerians accepted the idea of European Community partners co-locating, provided that they could do so by swapping plots between themselves. The French abandoned their prime offices site beside the British site and planned instead to join European Community member states in a proposed group further out. The British government decided to forgo the opportunity of co-locating with European partners because it thought that doing so would, on balance, detract from its commercial effectiveness in the circumstances of Nigeria.

Temporary Buildings

The Nigerians also lifted their embargo on liaison offices. The British High Commission in Lagos responded initially by introducing a weekly duty officer run to Abuja and, in January 1991, leased a suite in the Hilton Hotel as a temporary liaison office, manned by a locally-engaged British wife, to serve as a pied-à-terre for official visitors from Kaduna and Lagos. Meanwhile, Post and FCO professional staff in London were searching for suitable temporary premises for offices and residence that would suffice until permanent developments were completed on the two allocated long-term sites. Negotiations were opened with Alhaji Isa Mohammed for the lease of two large houses that he was shrewdly building speculatively off Mississippi Street in Maitama District on Plot 364 (1.26 hectares) that would suffice as temporary classified chancery offices and as a residence, with a medical centre in the outbuildings. A five year lease was accordingly signed in March 1991, and these buildings, after the completion of ingoing works and furnishing, were occupied in September 1992. In 1995, with the development of permanent accommodation looking far off, a new 25-year lease was signed on Plot 364 at £100,000 per annum, payable five years in advance. (All the FCO’s Abuja leases contained more specific break clauses than the usual diplomatic ones so as to protect against the development of Abuja not succeeding and the leased accommodation becoming unnecessary.)

For the high commission’s temporary unclassified offices (for consular, visa, commercial, aid and management sections) a simple office building, called Dangote House on Plot 2790, was built to FCO specifications by the owner of the plot and leased to the FCO, initially for six years, from its completion in November 1993. [Is this plot on Aguiyi Ironsi Street, also the British visa collection centre?]

Staff Accommodation

On meeting the staff accommodation requirement , the FCO made much better progress than it expected. The residential areas of Abuja had been deliberately subdivided by the Development Authority into small plots to fend off large speculative developers. In March 1991 FCO agreed to pay the premium for a 22 year ground lease on Plot 779 (an unusually large plot of 2.9 hectares) on which to build 22 houses, an amenity club, swimming pool, tennis court and servants’ quarters. It lies on the north side of Ibrahim Babangida Way, opposite the ICECA Al-Noor Mosque, in the inner district of Wuse. A quick competition among in-house FCO architects for the design and layout of this Village was won by Francess Easmon. The construction work was funded and managed by Girola, a major Italian contractor, through Stabilini, a Kaduna-based Nigerian-registered developer. When the houses were complete, the FCO bought the long leasehold interest in them from Girola for £4.5 million in May 1994. The roadway within the Village is called Thaba Tseka Street.

In addition to the Village, the FCO acquired an interest in Plot 703, at Lawani Crescent, where five houses for more senior staff were built to its specification and leased initially for seven years on their completion in March 1995. [What is the address of this plot?] By then, hovering political uncertainties and delays to Abuja’s infrastructure development combined to postpone the date until December 1997 by which missions were required to have moved from Lagos. The FCO therefore had an early surplus of staff accommodation that became something of an embarrassment: it was lessened to a degree by sub-letting as much as practicable to missions less far forward in their preparations. In the event, the British high commissioner and most of his staff moved from Lagos to Abuja in 1997, whereupon Lagos became a deputy high commission.

Permanent Buildings

The temporary buildings for all of the offices served tolerably until they were eventually, after various vicissitudes of their own, replaced by newly-built permanent buildings on Plot 1137 on Diplomatic Drive in the Central Business District. At an earlier juncture [? In which year], the Plot for permanent offices was switched from Plots 315-316, which the FCO had signed up for in 1990, to this new one next to the American embassy, so as to maximise its physical protection. The American firm of architects, RTKL Associates, was selected [how and why?] in 2007 for this major project, working also with Ridge and Partners [in what capacity?]. [Description of scheme, and reasons for delays, required.]

The high commission offices began moving from their temporary accommodation on Plot 364 and from Dangote House to the completed permanent offices in July 2017. They were opened by Boris Johnson and Priti Patel, Secretaries of State respectively for Foreign Affairs and International Development, on 31 August 2017.

[The final piece in the 35 year making of Abuja story is a ‘permanent’ residence. Is the ‘temporary’ residence still on Plot 364? How is the former temporary offices house on that plot being used? In 2019, Kilburn Nightingale, architects, were appointed to design a new residence plus 20 staff flats. Was that for Plot 1034? Has that project been abandoned?]