Abstract
Abuja, Nigeria as a befitting Federal Capital Territory, centrally located, without the defects of Lagos was spawned in 1975. The site was chosen for its location at the center of the nation, its small population and for political reasons. In the process, a Master Plan was developed. However, subsequent governments in Abuja abused the integrity of the Master Plan and that resulted in Abuja urbanization and housing inadequacy. The most vulnerable is that, the urban poor had to arrange, on their own, where to live and that resulted in shanty settlements, hence “spatial dialectics,” informal volumetric and unvolumetric combination now called the “spatial house”, “open house” or “house without limit”. This work aimed to document the problems associated with inappropriate implementation of the Abuja Master Plan that resulted in Abuja urbanization and housing inadequacy and proffers solutions to the Abuja housing problems. The authors adopted content based analysis, qualitative research method that involved data from primary and secondary sources. The Abuja Master Plan was elaborated to put in place, sustainable urban spatial environment for all groups and activities to be carried out in the Capital Territory. It provided low-income settlement areas, to be built by the government and occupied by the public servants; the private sector servants did not appear to be properly provided for. The current Abuja housing settlements are not integrated. There is need for the formal, informal settlements and the Abuja urban actors to be talking and link with the Central City infrastructure to create a diverse economy and economic empowerment of all.
Highlights
Subsequent governments in Abuja abused the integrity of the Master Plan and that resulted in Abuja urbanization and housing inadequacy
This work aimed to document the problems associated with inappropriate implementation of the Abuja Master Plan that resulted in Abuja urbanization and housing inadequacy and proffers solutions to the Abuja housing problems
The government’s approaches to solving the problems of the urban poor housing issues in Abuja Federal Capital Territory have not yielded a reliable solution; especially in the area of urban spatial distribution being created by the invasion of the formal by the informal urban dwellers; and to start solving them, this paper explored sustainable spatial integration and retention of the urban poor settlement areas that architecturally bridged the gap between the urban poor settlements and place of work
Summary
The rush to the urban areas stampeded urbanization and according to Okonkwo (2013), in the contemporary Nigerian situation, urbanization is an unstoppable phenomenon and is not a recent phenomenon in the history of Nigeria This phenomenon according to Obiadi (2018) citing Okonkwo (2013), was nation-wide, affecting mostly state capital cities such as Enugu, Lagos, Jos, Ibadan, etc. The creation of 19 states, each with its own capital city, stimulated a drift of population to these capitals with the associated demand for housing both for official and for private residential uses These developments produced great pressure on the sizes of urban centers in Nigeria
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