Abuja

The land around the site was home to Gbagyi, Koro, Gwandara and other communities long before the capital was planned, with the old town of Abuja — today's Suleja, just outside the territory — founded early in the 19th century by rulers displaced from Zaria during the Fulani jihad. The new city took its name when the older town was renamed to release it.

The decision came in 1976. Lagos, the capital since colonial times, was congested, coastal, vulnerable and identified with one region, and a federal committee recommended a new capital on neutral ground at the geographical centre of the country. A Federal Capital Territory was carved out of parts of Kaduna, Kwara, Niger and Plateau states, its existing inhabitants largely resettled, and an international team led by the Japanese architect Kenzo Tange prepared a master plan: a central axis running west from the National Assembly between the hills, with districts arranged around it and Aso Rock closing the eastern end.

Building began at the start of the 1980s and was slowed by the oil price crash and by changes of government. The seat of government formally moved from Lagos on 12 December 1991, with ministries, the presidency and foreign missions following over the following decade. Growth has since far outrun the plan: satellite towns such as Kubwa, Nyanya, Lugbe and Karu have absorbed the people the planned districts could not house, and the Federal Capital Territory is now among the fastest-growing urban areas in Africa. The National Assembly, the presidential villa and the two great religious buildings on the central axis have become the images by which Nigerians picture their government.

Abuja has no single indigenous culture at its centre. The Gbagyi are the territory's original people, and their villages, language and pottery survive in the surrounding districts, but the city itself is a gathering of Nigerians from everywhere: Hausa, Yoruba, Igbo, Middle Belt peoples, and communities from each of the 36 states, each with its own associations, churches and mosques. The result is a formal, cosmopolitan and somewhat transient society organised around government, contracts and connections.

Religion is highly visible and carefully balanced. The national mosque and the national Christian centre face each other across the central district by design, Friday prayers and Sunday services both empty the roads, and large Pentecostal auditoriums and mosque complexes ring the outer districts. Dress reflects this mix: kaftans and caps, agbada, lace and headties at weddings, and dark suits in the ministries.

Social life happens in restaurants, lounges, hotel bars and at the lakeside, rather than on the street, and weekends bring weddings, naming ceremonies and church conventions on a large scale. The city has a growing music, comedy and art scene, and craft work from across the country is sold in its markets. Abuja is also Nigeria's political stage: protests, press conferences and policy arguments concentrate here, and conversation in the city tends towards government, appointments and the economy.

The urban area centred on Abuja was estimated at 3.77 million people in 2022, having grown from almost nothing in the early 1980s, and the built-up area now reaches far beyond the planned districts into Kubwa, Lugbe, Nyanya, Karu, Gwagwalada and Bwari. Most residents live in these outer settlements and commute in, filling the approach roads from before dawn.

Government is the economy: ministries, agencies, the National Assembly, embassies and the contractors, consultants, hotels and service businesses that depend on them. Construction is constant, banking and telecommunications keep regional offices here, and a large informal sector of traders, drivers, artisans and domestic workers supports the rest. The gap between the wealth of Maitama and Asokoro and the conditions in the satellite towns is the city's defining social fact, and the cost of living since the 2023 subsidy removal and currency float has become a dominant concern.

The working day starts early and finishes in long queues of traffic; evenings go to church meetings, gyms, lounges, football on screens and roadside grills. Water and power supply are better than in most Nigerian cities but still unreliable, and generators are common. Demolitions of unplanned settlements, land allocation disputes and street-trading bans recur as local political issues.

Abuja eats from the whole country. Suya, the northern speciality of thin beef skewers rubbed with a peppery groundnut spice called yaji and grilled over charcoal, is the evening street food, sold wrapped in newspaper with raw onion and tomato. Masa, small fermented rice cakes, tuwo, a stiff grain porridge eaten with miyan kuka made from baobab leaves, and kilishi, dried spiced meat, come from the same northern tradition.

From the south come jollof rice, egusi and ogbono soups with pounded yam or eba, Igbo bar dishes such as nkwobi and isi ewu, and the Yoruba pairing of amala with ewedu and gbegiri. Local Middle Belt cooking contributes pounded yam from Benue, acha, the small grain known in English as fonio, and yam in every form, roasted at the roadside with palm oil and pepper or boiled with vegetables.

Everyday street eating means akara fritters and pap at breakfast, moin moin, fried yam and plantain, roasted corn in the rainy season and grilled fish in the evening. Drinks run from kunu, a millet drink, and fura da nono, millet balls in fermented milk, to hibiscus zobo, palm wine brought up from the south, beer and chapman in the lounges, and strong sweet tea from northern roadside stalls.