The Two Faces of Abuja

Long known as a country of poverty in which 60% of the population lives on less than $1 a day, the windfalls of Nigeria's oil boom have nevertheless produced a rather wealthy elite in the country that has long been by noted by Nigerians and outsiders alike.  (A friend who had grown up in Lagos told me recently of the "Red BMW" parties he went to in the city as a youth, in which every attendee had to arrive in a pre-determined color of the German car or be denied admission.) Planning a stay in Abuja, Nigeria this summer, I've recently been led to believe that Nigeria's new capital city of Abuja (purpose-built in the 1980s to relieve both congestion and ethnic tensions from then-capital Lagos), is the epitome of the disparities of wealth that exist in the country. 

Articles by the New York Times  and BBC highlight the fact that for diplomats and government employees, life within Abuja is infused with the opulence that might be expected from a city purpose-built to serve as host to branches of global IGOs (like the United Nations), regional IGOS (like the headquarters of ECOWAS) and as the seat of the Nigerian government; however, for those employed in Abuja's service industry (like chauffeurs, housekeepers, cooks, etc.) life is less fabulous. Indeed, Abuja's cost of living is often cited as being roughly equivalent to living in Manhattan, rendering it one of the most expensive cities in Africa.  Consequently, service workers live in shanty towns outside the capital, unable to pay the cost of living in the "elite" city of Abuja, which the Minister of the Federal Capital Territory, Nasir el-Rufai has infamously claimed "is not a city for poor people." 

Despite the apparent inequities between the elites and service industry,  Abuja announced yesterday in the Nigerian daily This Day  that it now seeks to be named among the '20 Best Cities in the World.'  In addition to being known as one of the most efficient capitals in Africa, Abuja garnered acclaim in 2003 for hosting the All-Africa Games, a continental equivalent to the Olympics.  Logistical gaffes aside, Abuja then put its name in the hat to host the 2014 Commonwealth Games, which would have marked the first time an African nation had hosted; it eventually lost out to Glasglow, Scotland, when committee members decided that Abuja wasn't quite yet capable of hosting such a large event.  Abuja thus appears a city optimistically energetic yet perhaps overly-ambitious of its own current capacity.

The question simplified: Should Abuja be lauded for creating a stable, clean, navigable and enviable capital for Nigeria, even if life there is so prohibitively expensive for the average Nigerian?  Will the comparative opulence of Abuja spur on the creation of a new Nigeria technocratic class, or will it simply elicit disdain from those citizens unable to afford its elite style of life?  Comments welcome...