Abuja Becomes the Capital

On 12 December 1991 Abuja replaced Lagos as the capital of Nigeria (Wikipedia). Abuja is a purpose-built capital at the geographic centre of the country, within the Federal Capital Territory. According to Wikipedia, plans had been made since independence to place the capital in a location seen as neutral to all the major ethnic groups and close to all the regions of the country, in view of Nigeria's ethnic and religious divisions. Lagos remains the country's most populous city.

The decision to move the capital went back to the 1970s. According to Wikipedia, plans had been made since independence to place the capital somewhere neutral to all the major ethnic groups and close to all the regions; the central site was chosen in the early 1970s as a sign of neutrality and national unity. Lagos's rapid growth had also made it overcrowded, and the government wanted to spread economic development into the interior; the planners compared the project with Brazil's new capital, Brasília. The Library of Congress country study adds that the move was seen as a way of spreading industry inland and of relieving the congestion that threatened to choke Lagos, and that Abuja was chosen partly because it was not identified with any one ethnic group.

The Federal Military Government issued Decree No. 6 on 4 February 1976 to begin moving the capital from Lagos to Abuja, and early planning was carried out under Murtala Muhammad and Olusegun Obasanjo (Wikipedia).

Construction began in 1979 under President Shehu Shagari, who made Abuja his first journey outside Lagos after his election and pressed for the work to be finished. The move was controversial: Obafemi Awolowo led the opposition to it. Because of economic and political instability, the first stages of the city were not completed until the late 1980s, and the relocation, which Shagari had rescheduled from 1986 to 1992, finally took place in December 1991 (Wikipedia). The land of the Federal Capital Territory was home to the Gbagyi, Gwandara, Basa, Koro and other peoples (Wikipedia).