Photo: Vanguard
The Night Abuja Forgot It Was a Capital City
Nobody told Abuja residents that last Tuesday night would change their lives forever. The evening started normally — people were returning from work, mama put joints were doing their last business of the day, and Uber drivers were chasing their final trips. Then the sky opened up, and e be like say God pour the whole Atlantic Ocean on top FCT.
By 10pm, what started as ordinary rainfall had transformed into something nobody in recent memory had witnessed. Streets became rivers. Cars became boats — except they couldn't actually float. Homes that people had spent their life savings to build were swallowed by muddy, dark water. And in the middle of all this chaos, thousands of Abuja residents were left to fend for themselves.
Real People, Real Pain — The Human Cost Nobody Is Talking About
Let us talk about Mama Chidinma, a trader in Karu who watched her entire shop inventory — fabrics, provisions, everything she had stocked up for the Christmas season — get washed away in less than two hours. "I have been in Abuja for fifteen years," she told a reporter through tears. "Nothing like this don happen before. Nothing." She is currently sleeping in her sister's one-room apartment with her four children while trying to figure out how to rebuild from zero.
Or what about the young civil servant in Lugbe who had just moved into his new apartment three weeks ago? First month in his own place, first taste of independence, and overnight the flood reduced his brand new furniture to soggy, useless wood. He posted his situation on X (formerly Twitter) and the responses he got were mostly people asking for his account number to send small support — because the government? Nowhere to be found.
These are not statistics. These are Nigerians — hardworking, tax-paying Nigerians — who deserve better from the city they call home. Abuja is Nigeria's pride, our face to the international community, the city we point to when we want to show the world that Nigeria has order. But last Tuesday night, that mask fell off completely.
Drainage System? Which Drainage System?
Here is where we need to ask the hard questions, because somebody must answer. Abuja is not Lagos. Lagos has an excuse — it is an island city with colonial-era infrastructure that was never designed for 25 million people. But Abuja was purpose-built. This city was planned from scratch in the 1970s. Every road, every estate, every government quarter was designed with intention. So how, in the name of everything holy, does a purpose-built capital city flood like a village with no infrastructure?
The answer is drainage — or rather, the complete absence of functional drainage. Drive through any part of Abuja today and look carefully at the gutters. You will find them blocked with pure water sachets, plastic bags, construction debris, and years of accumulated rubbish. The ones that were built have either collapsed from neglect or were never completed in the first place. Some areas don't even have gutters at all — just open land where developers built houses without any thought for water management.
The Federal Capital Development Authority (FCDA) and the FCT Administration have collected billions of naira in development levies, land allocation fees, and infrastructure funds over the decades. So where exactly did the drainage budget go? Who approved buildings in flood-prone areas without requiring proper water management systems? These are the questions Abuja residents deserve answers to — not press releases and condolence statements.
The Bigger Problem: Unplanned Development Is Killing Our City
Let us be honest with ourselves. Part of this problem is the unchecked explosion of development across Abuja's satellite towns. Places like Kuje, Gwagwalada, Dutse, and Lugbe have grown at a speed that the infrastructure simply cannot support. People are building on waterways. Developers are filling up natural drainage channels to construct more houses. And the authorities either look the other way or collect their "settlement" and move on.
Every rainy season, we hear the same story. Water enters houses in Garki. Apo Extension floods. The road in Kubwa becomes a river. And every year, officials come out to inspect, take photos for the newspaper, promise to fix things, and then disappear until the next flood. This cycle has to stop. Abuja residents are tired of being treated like their suffering is just content for government press releases.
What Must Happen Now — No More Excuse Accepting
The displaced residents need immediate support — not tomorrow, not after a committee has been set up to review the situation. Right now. Emergency shelters, food supplies, and medical assistance for those whose health has been affected by exposure to floodwater. FCT Administration, this is your responsibility.
Beyond immediate relief, we need a full forensic audit of Abuja's drainage infrastructure. Who built what, when, at what cost, and why it failed so spectacularly. We need accountability for the officials who approved building permits in areas that common sense — not even engineering knowledge, just common sense — would tell you should not be developed.
And we need a comprehensive, time-bound drainage masterplan for the FCT. Not another policy document to gather dust in someone's office in Area 11. An actual plan with contractors, timelines, and consequences for failure to deliver.
Abuja Residents, Stand Up for Your City
The people of Abuja — both the born-and-bred FCT indigenes and the millions who have made this city their home — deserve a capital that works. You deserve roads that don't turn into rivers every July. You deserve a drainage system that handles rainfall like a proper modern city. You deserve officials who treat your safety as a priority, not an afterthought.
Last Tuesday night was a wake-up call. The question is whether those in power will answer it, or whether we will be writing this same story again next rainy season. As for the residents still counting their losses today — e go be. Nigeria has never broken us yet, and this flood won't either. But accountability must follow. No more business as usual.
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