ABSTRACT

This chapter focuses on the housing deficit for the people of middle and low income earners residing in Abuja, the new Federal Capital of Nigeria. It traces the causes of lack of affordable housing for the majority of the inhabitants of the city and the path of housing development envisioned by Nigerian political leaders and bureaucrats in the immediate post-colonial era. The chapter examines various methods in which Abuja's master plan, policies and modernist urban planning have acted to maintain political and social inequality through spatial delineation and marginalization. The rhetoric of the master plan of Abuja proclaims that through modernist architecture, urban form and spatial delineations, social, economic, political and ideological complexities. The difficulties and complexities of establishing a post-colonial ideal in Lagos through modernist architecture failed in part from pre-existing symptoms in the city. Via rhetoric and spatial delineation, Abuja's master plan camouflages the inherent problems of solving the housing crisis.