Stop the backdoor relocation to Lagos

It is remarkable that on a week when the value of the naira fell to its lowest ever in history, a time when $800 million of foreign airlines remains trapped in Nigeria, the response of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu administration was to relocate key departments of the Central Bank of Nigeria and the corporate headquarters of the Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria (FAAN) to Lagos.

The two agencies have cited space constraints in Abuja and operational flexibility as the major reasons for relocating to Lagos. Yet, coming just days apart, and through leaked memos, rather than sound public communications, the moves have since sparked furious controversy and ill-will between Nigeria’s component parts that are yet to abate.

Northern political and socioeconomic groups like the Northern Senators Forum (NSF), the Arewa Consultative Forum (ACF), Northern Elders Forum (NEF), as well as many youth groups have all condemned the move and voiced serious concerns over what they see as a backdoor relocation of Nigeria’s federal capital to Lagos in pursuit of a regional or ethnic agenda. In turn, similar groups from across southern Nigeria like Afenifere and the Ijaw Youth Council (IYC) have all joined the fray in a needless controversy that should not have arisen in the first place.

Daily Trust stands against these relocations and calls on the government to reverse same immediately. First, we stand against any action by the government or anyone else that pitches Nigerians against one another. At a time when Nigeria is facing serious challenges in security and the economy that require unity and concerted efforts by all, the government chose to embark on policies that it knows, at least should know, would stoke divisions and recriminations among Nigerians along ethnic, regional and sectarian lines.

Second, the reasons advanced by the federal government for the relocations are simply unconvincing. If office space is a constraint for these agencies, there is more than enough land in Abuja to expand, rather than relocate to Lagos, the most congested place in Nigeria. In fact, the impossible congestion of Lagos was one of the major reasons for siting a new federal capital in Abuja, nearly five decades ago. And we wonder why the Tinubu administration is now standing history and geography on their heads by appearing to backtrack on a matter long resolved.

Moreover, it is not true that merely because the major financial institutions are located in Lagos and that the city is the hub of aviation sector in the country, then the key departments of CBN and FAAN should be in Lagos. New York city is the financial and aviation hub of the United States, yet the Federal Reserve Bank and U.S aviation authorities are all situated in Washington D.C, that country’s administrative capital. If the government’s argument were stretched to other sectors, then nearly all ministries and departments of the government and the others will have to relocate to other parts of the country, defeating the whole purpose of having a federal capital territory in Abuja. In any case, both the CBN and FAAN already have functional offices in Lagos.

Equally important, the Tinubu government forgets that the position of Abuja as the administrative capital of Nigeria is a constitutional matter that is fully grounded in the 1999 Constitution. That position cannot change under any guise without due amendment to the constitution; and until then the status quo must remain. The CBN is not a bank, nor is the FAAN an airline. Both are policy and administrative agencies of the federal government that should be located right at the seat of the government, as obtains the world over.

Besides, Lagos is not a “sister or second federal capital” of Nigeria. It is, right now, the capital of a state government, with “indigenes” and “non-indigenes”, a status that comes with attendant contentions in Nigeria as recent political events remind us. Abuja, on the other hand, rightly belongs to all Nigerians, and therefore should, rightly too, be the seat of all major agencies of the central government. Technological advances in communication and transport have made any issues of operational inconvenience in Abuja redundant.

On the whole, the reasons advanced by the government are not sound enough for such a major policy, fueling suspicions of an ethnic or regional agenda from many important and well-considered voices. Also, that information on the relocations surfaced through leaked memos, rather than through direct public communication and engagement with Nigerians is not only unfortunate but also lends credence to the suspicions of a political agenda.

The relocation of the seat of the federal government from Lagos to Abuja was one of the most contentious and divisive issues in Nigerian politics that pitched the north against the south for decades in the 1970s and 80s. If the Tinubu government had any good reasons for moving some agencies back to Lagos again, then such a policy should have been thoroughly and effectively communicated to Nigerians, not done surreptitiously in internal memos.

Finally, the Tinubu government must realize that Abuja as the capital of Nigeria is not one of its problems, and relocation of any agency to Lagos is not a solution to any of its problems. Relocating CBN departments to Lagos would not arrest the free-fall of the naira or bring inflation and food prices down to tolerable levels. Nor would relocating FAAN solve the problem of forex liquidity in the aviation sector. Resorting to these divisive policies simply means the administration has run out of ideas for solving the problems that truly matter. It is time for the government to live up to the expectations of Nigerians rather than stoke unnecessary division in the land.