BY TPL Umar Shuaibu
All plots of land must be accessible by road. Thus, road corridors are land uses whose changes have much wider implications than the other land use components. Because people cannot fly to reach their houses, compromise on any land earmarked as a road corridor, irrespective of the hierarchy, terminates the functionality of all the other land use components serviced by the road.
Ten lanes are the highest hierarchy traffic network in the Federal Capital City. They are described variously as Expressways, Ring Roads, Parkways, Transitways, and Civic Spine. The Abuja City land use plan identifies them as Outer Northern and Outer Southern Expressways (ONEX and OSEX), Inner Expressways North and South (INEX and ISEX), Ring Roads I, II, III, and IV (RRI, RR II, RR III, and RR IV), Parkways (Northern and Southern), Transitways, and Civic Spine Roads.
Other than the Ring Roads, all the other Expressways emanate from the Central Area District in the Phase I of the City and radiate outwards to the western direction across all the subsequent phases. The Civic Spine comprises the B-6 and B-12, otherwise referred to as Constitution and Independent Avenues. They commence from the Three Arms Zone and meet at the City Gate to form the Airport Expressway, otherwise referred to as the Umaru Musa Yar’adua Way. The ONEX, OSEX, and the Civic Spine all convey their traffic to the A-2 Federal Trunk Road at Zuba, Giri, and Gwagwalada, respectively.
With the exception of Ring Road I, ONEX, and the Civic Spine, all the Expressways in the Federal Capital City are only partly developed, with very long ways across all the phases of the City to arrive at their final destinations. Their corridors are reserved and always being protected with enforcements against encroachments. Otherwise, their actualization would not be possible, and the functionality of the City would be destroyed.
In order to prevent the development of slums and abodes for criminal elements in the City, the FCT Administration was allocating the reservations through the Parks and Recreations Department for temporary greening, pending the time the road would be implemented. Such allocations were subjected to revalidations on an annual basis upon reapplication. It serves as a reminder that the allocations are not statutory and can be terminated anytime the land is required for road development.
The challenges encountered are that the allottees don’t apply for the revalidations, and at the same time, they mischievously sell these types of Park Allocations to unsuspecting citizens; therefore, the temporary allocations were stopped.
Unfortunately, some of the FCT Administrators could be ignorant of the FCT development plans, and their conscience could be overpowered by greed for land ownership. These road reservations could therefore be viewed as vacant lands to grab for statutory plot allocation. Moreover, all the lands allocated by the Parks and Recreations Department would be mistaken as statutory green area lands. Unfortunately, such administrators have zero regard for green area provisions in the plan.
Our knowledge of the plans around the land recently being disputed between the FCT Administration and the Military is that it occupies the Southern Parkway corridor reservation as it traverses through the Gaduwa District. This is evident from the formal communication in 2022 from the Parks and Recreations Department to Santos Estate Ltd, which was originally allocated the land in 2007, and four others for Parks development.
The request made by Santos was for confirmation and clarification of the status concerning the allocation. In response, it was categorically communicated that the land is a part of the City Parkway system; as such, it cannot be allowed for the development, management, and promotion of ideal recreational parks, which require huge financial investment.
Consequently, irrespective of the size and extent of financial investment on the land, it would eventually be removed for the implementation of the Parkway. The government would never approve any development; otherwise, it would be saddled with the payments of compensation. The land can only be allocated for Parks and Recreation uses on a temporary basis, as earlier described.
The Parkway runs through the Center of the Northern and Southern residential areas across all the phases of the City development. Within the Central Area, it separates into two one-way traffic routes, the N8/S8 and N9/S9 roads, with the Cultural Zone in between. The Cultural Zone contains the Shehu Yar’adua Center, the National Mosque, the National Ecumenical Center, the Nigerian Television Authority, and the FCDA Office Complex, among others, from north to south.
The Northern Parkway was extended up to Ring Road II many years back and is named after Sani Abacha, while the construction of the Southern Parkway, named after Bola Tinubu, has stopped at Ring Road I until the Durumi Village and other indigenous settlements that are serving as impediments for the continuation of the development are compensated and resettled. If there is any urgency, it should be the activity of resettling the villages to pave the way for the continuation of the Southern Parkway corridor.
For the avoidance of any doubt, relying on the veracity of the content of the 2022 response to Santos Estate Ltd, we would categorically state that the allocations to anybody on that land are never sustainable. Whether by the Parks and Recreations, or statutory, issued by the FCT Land Administration Department, by any past or present FCT Administration, so long as the allocation is located along the Parkway Corridor reservation.
