The Maitama mudslide and responsibility for protecting our reservations

In the course of preparing the Abuja Master Plan report, the International Planning Associates team examined the planning and operations of other capital cities of the world. It is our pride that Abuja presents a model, not only in the beauty of its plan, but also in the challenges of implementing policies in our type […]

In the course of preparing the Abuja Master Plan report, the International Planning Associates team examined the planning and operations of other capital cities of the world. It is our pride that Abuja presents a model, not only in the beauty of its plan, but also in the challenges of implementing policies in our type of turbulent environment.
Ours is a city that is experiencing development and management under the leadership of honest and dishonest leaders over the years. We had policy changes, reviews and innovations, depending on the dynamics of the physical, economic and socio-cultural environment. However, it is obvious that some basic structural elements in the building fabric of the city must not be altered. These include the parkways, transit ways, arterials, collectors, railway corridors, highlands and green area reservations.
The threat posed by the population pressure in the city leads to stiff competition for land uses. Specifically, land for residential and commercial uses pose great threat and challenges to areas reserved for greening the city. For those areas already developed within the city and its environs, changes in their uses earlier earmarked as green in the master plan to residential and commercial uses is now the order of the day. While forests fringes adjoining major roads are either getting continuously erased in favour of the roads expansion, without efforts to replace the plant being severed, or are outrightly changed for residential or commercial uses.
Abuja is planned to be implemented in phases. Building of most of the infrastructures have already commenced from the first phase of the city development and continued to the subsequent phases, while those that are yet to commence, their lands are being reserved and protected. Imagine any of these roads which implementation start from the first phase, but blocked, or truncated by an estate development in the subsequent phases. Whenever a plan specifies an area as green or undevelopable, there are underlying reasons, and its violation could be injurious, or, at times, fatal.
The more the departments saddled with planning and land use control abuse their responsibilities, the more degraded shall be our city. The more they stand their grounds, the healthier shall be the city. Despite the existence of the plan clearly indicating type of uses, many so-called chief executives with the agenda of acquisition of ill-gotten wealth, through the overriding of collective with personal interest, bully their way to acquire and desecrate lands in contravention of their approved uses. In the past, many stern and upright staff made sacrifices at the expenses of their positions and jobs to check these types of excesses.
The mud-slide at Mississippi Street, Maitama, during construction work is a product of such violations. Development around this area has been controversial right from the initial stage of the city development. Unfortunately, those with the background details of the real information are now out of service, some sent out unceremoniously as a result of their abiding by regulations. We have earlier made presentation on this subject in our previous episode.
Looking at the Abuja Phase I land use plan, the whole area surrounding the Maitama Hill has been earmarked as undevelopable. Dar-e-Handasa was the firm that carried out the underground survey. Information received revealed that in its report to the FCDA, it mentioned the existence of underlying hard rock superimposed by the land that made up the hill, and stated the possibility of a land slide around the vicinity in future, hence, its suggestion for the area to remain as green.
The issue is not in the violation of the conditions attached to any building approval for the development on site, if there is any, as it has been revealed that the activity on the site is still preparatory to the commencement of building the main structure. The actual problem is laying the area for plots allocation, in contravention of the fact that it has been earmarked in the Abuja Master Plan as green and undevelopable.