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Abuja—Nigeria’s must-see federal capital city since 1993—is undergoing a dramatic and much-anticipated makeover. The Federal Capital Development Agency, which administers the city on behalf of the Presidency, is carrying out far-reaching urban renewal that is bound to improve the city’s distorted outlook and turn it back to the model city it was cut out to be. As the minister in charge of the territory Mallam Nasir El-Rufai has said, Abuja is “one of the things we are proud of in this country.”

In the final years of military rule (1984-1999) government officials allocated land to themselves and other applicants in the wrong spots. That set off a wave of haphazard constructions mismatched with what the Master Plan dictates. Pockets of slums sprung up in the spate of building activities to follow; mansions and high rises got erected, most notably on sewers and in Green Areas. Abuja was being turned into another Lagos, the former capital which is already suffering the result of decades of development based on whims rather than well-thought out planning.

There’s still a lot of construction works going on in different parts of Abuja but they are presently carried out with a lot more discipline and concern for the environment. “Goodbye to the days when you could walk up to an undeveloped plot in some quiet neighbourhood and build whatever you liked on it, simply because you got a piece of paper from somebody who is an administrator,” one resident, obviously pleased with the present state of affairs, wrote in a national daily.

I recently got my first opportunity to visit many parts of the city—Gwarimpa, Kubwa, Garki, Wuse, Maitama—like I had never done before. Obtrusive settlements, some belonging to the government and other privately-owned structures have been marked for demolition. And so have lock up shops. The affected parts will revert to their original purpose as spelled out in the original blueprint.

At an open-air bar in Garki one evening, this lyric from a song caught my interest: “If your house is sitting on a sewage, consider it demolished.”

“For the long term, I believe at the end of the day we’re going to have a city that you and me, our children and children’s children can come into and relax and feel like they are in London or some other western capitals,” Emmanuel Ukera told me at a nice alfresco joint situated in Wuse 2. Ukera, a lawyer, had both his apartment (around Zone 3) and office building (at Maitama) leveled by the bulldozers. “In all fairness to him (El-Rufai), and without sentiments, I’ll tell you straight away that what the man is doing is good. I admire his courage,” Ukera said.

In my chat with other residents, the Wuse Market phenomenon kept recurring. Before now, one lady said, traders in the market spilled out onto the major road, inhibiting the free flow of traffic. “Now you can drive easily into the market and even park your car.” On a drive through later on, I saw this new sanity now in place.

Abuja’s paved and wide roads and intersections add to the allure of the place, not to mention the tree-adorned medians, the airy feel in all the right places. And quite unlike most Nigerian cities, there is an attractive neatness everywhere one looks. It’s all part of a collective discipline, according to Ken Achabo, another resident. “There’s this quiet environment that enhances creativity.”

British national Kathrine Shepherd, who was out shopping with her family at a crafts center, told me she considered the federal capital a safer place to live in, compared to, say, Lagos (south west). “I was scared when I knew I would be coming to Nigeria,” she said. “But it’s been a great four months. Abuja is a great place to be and I hope it continues to expand.”

But Abuja, my guide said, and most Nigerians know, is pretty expensive in Real Estate terms. The song which line I quoted earlier also had something like this: “If you don’t have 40 million naira then Abuja is not for you.” For the residents, that may be a factor but for the tourists, I doubt if it matters. The experience will be worth all the money spent. You can count on that.

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