ABSTRACT
From a historian’s viewpoint, and if the inauguration of the FCC in 1992 reflected another stage in the development of the country, situating the sources of the ideas for the establishment of Abuja squarely in 1975 when Murtala Muhammed set up the Aguda Committee for the Relocation of the National Capital would be a shortcut to gaining an understanding of the country’s modernist architectural history. A holistic history of the location of a new seat of government for Nigeria outside Lagos would take into consideration the fact that the British first considered the development
of a capital for the nation when the country was established in the first decade of the twentieth century. Postcolonial Nigerian leaders realized the agenda of creating a new a capital city outside Lagos for the country. Subsequently, they brought the British idea to fruition. Most importantly, the history of the FCC would delineate the point that Abuja is a modernist city that resulted from the gradual rise of European capitalism beyond the borders of Europe from the late fifteenth century long before the geographical territory we now know as Nigeria was established.
