Architecture and Politics in Nigeria

In 1975, the Nigerian authorities decided to construct a new postcolonial capital called Abuja, and together with several internationally renowned architects these military leaders collaborated to build a city for three million inhabitants. Founded five years after the Civil War with Biafra, which caused around 1.7 million deaths, the city was envisaged as a place where justice would reign and where people from different social, religious, ethnic, and political backgrounds would come together in a peaceful manner and work together to develop their country and its economy. These were all laudable goals, but they ironically mobilized certain forces from around the country in opposition against the Federal Government of Nigeria. The international and modernist style architecture and the fact that the government spent tens of billions of dollars constructing this idealized capital ended up causing more strife and conflict. For groups like Boko Haram, a Nigerian Al-Qaida affiliate organization, and other smaller ethnic groups seeking to have a say in how the country's oil wealth is spent, Abuja symbolized everything in Nigeria they sought to change. By examining the creation of the modernist national public spaces of Abuja within a broader historical and global context, this book looks at how the successes and the failures of these spaces have affected the citizens of the country and have, in fact, radicalized individuals with these spaces being scene of some of the most important political events and terrorist targets, including bombings and protest rallies. Although focusing on Nigeria's capital, the study has a wider global implication in that it draws attention to how postcolonial countries that were formed at the turn of the twentieth century are continuously fragmenting and remade by the emergence of new nation states like South Sudan.

Nnamdi Elleh, Ph.D., is Professor of Architecture at the University of Cincinnati, Ohio. His research interests include modern and contemporary architecture understood as diverse, multi-centered, regional, vernacular and localized experiences in different parts of the world.

Preface Prologue Method, Sources and the Organization of the Book 1. The Literature 1.1. Abuja in Nigerian and African Modern Architectural History 1.2. Locating Abuja's Urban Form in Global Architectural Modernism 1.3. Abuja as a Post-Colonial Capital City after World War II 1.4. Abuja: A Capital City in Dis-Content with Architectural Modernism(s) 1.5. Public Space in the Aftermath of the Iranian Revolution and in the Post-Berlin Wall Contexts 2. The Inauguration 2.1. The Inauguration in the Civic Space, 2 December 1991 2.2. Contestations and Wars in the Public Spaces of Abuja 2.3. Emancipation in the Public Spaces at Abuja and in Nigerian Cities 2.4. Abuja As The Public Sphere for Transforming Nigeria 3. The Amalgamation of Nigeria and the Search for Capital City Location, 1900 - 1960 3.1 Nigeria: A Union of Traditional and Colonial World-Views 3.2 Modern Landscapes World-Views of Nigeria Capitalist Project 3.3 Colonial Debates to Establish Nigeria and its National Seat of Government 3.4 Lugard and the "Dual Mandate" World-View Plan for Nigeria 3.5. The Social Space Facilitated by Lugard when he Established Nigeria, 1900 - 1960 3.6 Insiders' Perspective I: Senator Abu Ibrahim and Professor Akin Mabogunje 4. Abuja: A National Development Project or A Military Conspiracy Against Lagos? 4.1 General Obasanjo: Making the Development of FCT Irreversible, 1976 - 1979 4.2 The Competition and the Selection of Thomas Todd and Kenzo Tange 4.3. President Shehu Shagari: "The Light That Failed" During The Rush to Build Abuja, 1979 to 1983 4.4 Insider's Perspectives II: Umar G. Benna 4.5 Insider's Perspective III: E. A. D. Nsiegbe 4.6 Insider's Perspective IV: Denis Browne 5. The Paths to "One of the Most Enormous Commercial Disputes in History" 5.1 An Oil Boom in Patronage of "A Monument to Progress" 5.2. The Cement Scandal: The Military Exculpates Itself from the National Congestion Caused by Its Capitalist Interests 5.3. A Development "At Breakneck Speed": What was at Stake for the Suppliers? 6. Thomas Todd: Reconstructing Nigeria's Political Consciousness In Washington, D. C.'s Enlightenment Urban Design Ideas 6.1. The City: From Sketches to Urban Spaces 6.2 The City As a Space of Social Interactions and Mnemonics 6.3 Wallace McHarg Roberts & Todd (WMRT) of Philadelphia 6.4 Who Designed What at Abuja? The "American Institute of Architects (AIA) Finds Itself in the Middle of a Design Controversy" 6.5 Siting Civic and Public Spaces in Nature at Abuja 6.6. Testing Three Generic Urban Forms on the Site: Compact, Multi-Centered, and Linear Urban Forms 6.7. Influences of Design Concepts from Brasília's, Chandigarh's, Canberra's, and Washington's Urban Forms on Abuja's Urban Form 6.8. Establishing the Hygienic and Monumental Government Precinct at Abuja 6.9. Designing Abuja's Civic and Public Spaces in the Image of Washington, D.C.'s Urban Form 6.10. The Mall: Todd's Strategies for Translating Abuja's National Landscapes into Civic and Public Spaces/Spheres 6.11. Discussing Todd's Modular City: Sectors, Districts, Communities and Neighborhoods 7. Kenzo Tange Urtec and Albert Speer Partners 7.1. A Synopsis of the Journey from Hiroshima and Tokyo to Abuja 7.2 Reflections on the Tokyo Metropolitan Complex 7.3. Designing Abuja's Central Area in 1981 After Tokyo Bay's 1960 Master Plan 7.4. Tange's Fortress Three Arms Zone at Abuja 7.5. Insider's Perspective V: Ryoji Terajima Interviewed the Interviewer 7.6. Insider's Perspective VI: Testuo Furuichi, the Elucidator of Tange's Urban Design 7.7. Abuja' Mall: Tange's Epitaph and Desire to Free Urban Space by Lifting Buildings on Pilotis 7.8. Albert Speer's Plan: An Ecologically-Sensitive Champs Elysees for Abuja 7.9. Insider's Perspective VII: Matthias Nuss Examines the Master Plans 8. Milton Keynes Development Corporation (MKDC) & Doxiadis Associates' The Ekistics Science 8.1. Experiencing the Modern Neighborhoods and the Neighbors 8.2 Encountering the "Other" in the Center of Unity 8.3. Insider's Perspective VIII: John Napleton and the Design for Living "Modern" Life at Abuja 8.4. Doxiadis Associates and the Ekistics Science 8.5 The Satellite Towns 9. Conclusion: The Planned Capital Where the President is A "Squatter" 9.1. Giving Citizens the Opportunity to Participate in Civic Urban and Architectural Projects 9.2. The Military's Hidden Agenda 9.3 Capital City as the Civic and the Public Spheres for the Exchange of Ideas 9.4. A Late Twentieth-Century Enlightenment-Inspired African Modernism 9.5. The Planned Capital Where the President is A "Squatter" Epilogue: The Reception "Abuja, Where Houses and People Live Apart" A Nigerian Historical Chronology Index