ISSUES IN THE ABUJA ESTATE FLOODING

Regulators should be held to account

With confirmed reports of the submergence of about 116 houses in Trademore Estate, Abuja, the question of criteria for authorising the construction of estates and other large settlements in the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) is called to question, once again. From Lokogoma to Lugbe, Nyanyan and even some highbrow areas within the city centre have remained glaringly hazardous places to live in or do business during the rainy season. While incidents of flooding have become a yearly occurrence in the country, Abuja stands out because it is a city where planning and compliance were reasonably expected.

 The Trademore estate, located in the Lugbe axis of the capital city, along the airport road, was flooded after a downpour in the early hours of last Friday. Apart from material devastation, residents also discovered a corpse stuck beneath the drain pathway by the entrance of the estate. “We saw him on the top of his vehicle trying to avoid the flood, but later we did not see him again,” as residents reportedly identified the body to be that of a man that they saw struggling to come out of a sky-blue Peugeot 406 vehicle when the flood started.  

Some of the critical elements of professional urban planning and development are knowledge of the physical geography of the environment, close attention to unusual topographical peculiarities, deliberate efforts not to encroach on existing waterways, dry valleys and flood plains. It also includes the study of soil types, via professional soil tests, to determine the types of structures that are appropriate for different parts of the projected plan area. These facts stand out as major Indices of credibility for the development of cities and other human settlements. They also stand out as issues about which the Federal Capital Territory Development Authority (FCDA) has several questions to answer.

 

It would be recalled that the immediate past Minister of the Federation Capital Territory, Mohammed Musa Bello, was stopped by the courts from continuing with the demolition of estates and structures deemed to have violated certain environmental laws. The issues at stake then are probably still unresolved, but the development of physical structures in other parts of Abuja has continued, notwithstanding allegations of possible environmental dangers. But there is also the question as to how the permit to erect these buildings was obtained in the first place.

 

In a nation where the citizens have sustained, and are still living with strong negative economic pressures, it is most distressing to witness events like the recent Trademore Estate flooding. And the losses are colossal. Perhaps the mooted and confirmed allegations of lapses on the part of urban planning, and other regulatory authorities, have led to the routinely replicated crises of flooding that affront us on a regular basis, all over the country.

This flood incident is a metaphor for the failure of regulatory agencies to be at their duty posts. To the extent that our national capital should showcase the best in us as people living in a 21st century world, we are all diminished when repeated cases of flooding and sundry environmental challenges are encountered here as an annual event.

The federal government should, as a matter urgency, take immediate steps to determine the immediate and remote causes of the regular flooding of Trademore Estate, among others. Regulatory lapses and disregard for environmental considerations should be identified, where they exist. The extent to which hapless citizens and developers were also misled into property investments in places that were probably inappropriate for such should be considered. Appropriate penalties should be meted out wherever culpability is established.