ICC
The recurrence of flooding in Abuja is putting the city’s land administration and development control processes under renewed scrutiny, with questions being raised over whether officials and developers who breach planning regulations are being adequately sanctioned.
Concerns over land allocation, building approvals, development control and enforcement have intensified as parts of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) continue to experience flooding, with stakeholders and residents questioning whether lapses in regulatory oversight and weak enforcement of planning rules are contributing to the problem.
Environmental experts and legal practitioners are asking more fundamental questions, including who allocated the land on which some of the structures blamed for worsening flooding were built, who approved their construction and whether those officials are being held accountable.
These questions are gaining prominence as the FCT Administration intensifies its campaign against structures built on waterways, green areas, floodplains and other locations reserved under the Abuja Master Plan.
Nyesom Wike, Minister, FCT, has ordered the removal of structures found to be obstructing waterways and reportedly taken disciplinary action against two officials involved in unauthorised land-use decisions.
Wike acknowledged that some of Abuja’s flooding is man-made, disclosing that the FCT Administration dispatched the executive secretary of the Federal Capital Development Authority and the director of development control to inspect affected communities, including Lugbe and Lokogoma, after heavy rainfall.
He said the administration needed to distinguish between flooding caused by natural conditions and that resulting from human activity, particularly developments that obstruct waterways or violate the Abuja Master Plan.
“From our studies, Lugbe has always been violating the Abuja masterplan,” Wike said, adding that people had built without approval and blocked areas designated for roads and other infrastructure.
However, experts say demolition cannot be the end of the accountability process. They want disputed allocations traced through the government agencies responsible for land administration and development control to establish whether due process was followed and whether officials deliberately or negligently breached planning rules.
The issue is particularly important because the FCT Administration controls much of the land allocation and development approval process. Under Section 18 of the FCT Act, the FCT Minister has statutory authority to allocate and revoke land in the territory. The Department of Land Administration processes allocations and oversees land administration, while the Abuja Geographic Information Systems manages land records, applications, title documentation and verification.
On the development side, the Department of Development Control under the Abuja Metropolitan Management Council is responsible for building-plan approvals and ensuring that construction complies with the Abuja Master Plan.
That creates a chain of responsibility extending from land allocation to development approval and inspection. Where a property was allocated by government and subsequently received development approval, experts say responsibility for an illegal development cannot automatically rest with the owner.
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Kenneth Iyamu, a retired Air Vice Marshal and president of the Association of Environmental Protection and Climate Change Practitioners, said the government should establish who was responsible for decisions that allowed problematic developments to emerge.
“You should tell Nigerians who is responsible. That’s what Nigerians want to hear,” Iyamu said.
He said the accountability process should trace each disputed development back to the officials and agencies involved in its allocation and approval rather than stopping with the person who constructed the building.
The concern gained further attention after Wike disclosed that a director within the FCT Administration had been suspended under civil service rules for issuing unauthorised temporary approvals to commercial operators on designated green areas. The minister also said another official faced disciplinary sanctions for illegally reallocating park land under the guise of security clearing.
Iyamu said such measures should form part of a wider review of the decisions that have altered Abuja’s planned land use. He also warned that persistent flooding could create wider social and security pressures if displaced residents are left without adequate support.
“The flood now is going to increase our security challenges, if you don’t think of that,” he said.
Iyamu said Abuja ultimately needs to return to the principles of its original master plan, while upgrading drainage and waste-management infrastructure and clearing waterways.
He urged the administration to avoid a response focused solely on rhetoric and demolition, arguing that agencies responsible for planning and environmental management must be answerable for decisions made under their watch.
“Go back to the master plan and don’t be selective in removing of the obstructions on the waterways,” he said.
For Abdul Gobir of A.S. Gobir & Co, the central problem is not a shortage of laws but weak compliance and enforcement. Abuja already has rules governing land allocation, zoning and development, he said, but those rules are undermined when officials responsible for enforcing them disregard or circumvent them.
“The problem is not the law. The problem we have is a problem of adherence to law, enforcement of the law,” Gobir said.
He said an investigation into structures erected on green areas, floodplains or other protected locations should begin with the allocation and approval process. Government determines the designated use of land and is responsible for identifying areas reserved for residential, commercial, recreational and environmental purposes.
Gobir said this creates a legal and administrative dilemma where an individual obtains land through an official allocation and subsequently secures government approval to develop it.
“If I apply for land, you ask me to pay certain amount of money, I pay. After making the payment, you allocate land to me. I wouldn’t know whether it is flood plain or green area. It is not for me to determine that,” he said.
In such cases, he argued, the government cannot simply demolish a property without examining the decisions that enabled its construction. Where a developer knowingly builds without approval or encroaches on protected land, the developer should face the consequences. But where government allocated the land and approved the development, officials involved in those decisions should also be investigated.
Gobir said this is particularly important because successive administrations have been accused of altering Abuja’s original land-use plan for political or commercial interests.
He said public officers who knowingly allocate protected land or approve developments outside the applicable planning framework could face sanctions under existing anti-corruption laws, including legislation dealing with abuse of office.
Agwu Amadi, head of the Department of Public Health and coordinator of the Institute of Environmental Health Technology at the Federal University of Technology, Owerri, said the flooding should be viewed primarily as a land-use planning and environmental governance failure rather than simply a drainage problem.
“The flooding problem in Abuja should no longer be dismissed as simply a matter of blocked drains or inadequate drainage infrastructure. It is fundamentally a land-use planning, environmental governance, and development-control issue,” Amadi said.
He said Abuja was designed around waterways, floodplains, green areas and open spaces that serve important drainage and environmental functions. Building over or converting those areas reduces their ability to absorb and channel stormwater, increasing the risk of flooding in roads, residential areas and commercial districts.
Amadi said the government should investigate cases where development has been approved on land reserved for waterways, drainage corridors, floodplains or other public purposes. Where negligence, deliberate violations or wrongdoing are established, both developers and public officials should face appropriate sanctions.
He stressed that protected environmental areas should not be treated as vacant land simply because they have not yet been developed.
“A floodplain is not a vacant land. A waterway is not surplus land. A green corridor is not simply an opportunity for development,” Amadi said.
Other experts say the FCT Administration should conduct a systematic audit of land allocations and development approvals in flood-prone and environmentally protected areas.
Such an audit, they say, should establish who allocated each plot, its original designation, whether its use was subsequently changed, who approved any change, who issued the building approval and whether officials acted outside the Abuja Master Plan.
They add that this measure would shift the government’s response from reactive demolition to institutional reform.
Magnus Onuoha, president of the Sustainable Energy Practitioners Association of Nigeria, said accountability must similarly extend beyond the demolition of structures.
“It is not just enough to say we are demolishing. Who actually allocated this land?” Onuoha asked.
He said demolitions could become another cycle of reactive enforcement if government removes structures after the damage has been done without investigating the administrative decisions that allowed them to be built.
Onuoha also linked the issue to the growing impact of climate change, saying heavier and more unpredictable rainfall would place greater pressure on cities where natural drainage systems have been compromised.
“Climate change is real, therefore, we should take heed,” he said.
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