Center Urges Resettlement To Curb Abuja Traffic Gridlocks

The Africa Development Studies Centre (ADSC) has recommended phased relocation of selected non-sensitive and high traffic government functions to the satellite municipalities in the Federal Capital Territory.

In a statement issued yesterday by ADSC’s president, Victor Oluwafemi, he said, “The Federal Capital Territory has substantial land and expansion potential across Kwali, Gwagwalada, Kuje, Bwari and Abaji. These municipalities should no longer remain peripheral settlements while the city centre carries an unsustainable load. When satellite towns are treated only as residential spillover, they create commuter pressure rather than economic balance.

“The solution is to build them as functional municipal centres where people can work, access services, invest, and live without being compelled to enter central Abuja daily,” he noted.

“Priority should be given to back office directorates and support units, training institutions and conference facilities, records and archives, stores and logistics centres, procurement processing and compliance units, and high footfall service points that can operate efficiently as one stop municipal hubs.

“This will reduce peak hour traffic demand, improve punctuality, lift staff motivation, and spread economic activity across the wider FCT.

“In addition, we recommend accelerated digitisation of government workflows so that approvals, memos, reporting, file routing, and inter agency coordination occur securely through digital systems rather than requiring constant physical movement.

The statement called for urgent investment and administrative decentralisation to curb the menace of traffic gridlocks in the Federal Capital Territory (FCT).

Oluwafemi said the centre’s findings showed that Abuja’s morning and evening congestion had moved beyond inconvenience and is now a structural governance challenge with direct implications for national productivity, public service performance, staff wellbeing, investor confidence and the long term livability of the capital.

He said the discovery followed ADSC’s policy research and urban systems analysis on the worsening traffic gridlock within the nation’s capital.

“Every workday, the same pattern repeats itself. In the mornings, a large majority of vehicles flow toward the same central corridors because government offices, public service points and high activity institutions remain excessively clustered in the city core.

“In the evenings, the same traffic reverses in a single wave, creating daily paralysis that drains time, energy and morale. ADSC’s research indicates that this problem is driven primarily by institutional concentration, not simply by limited road space.

“The more Abuja continues to concentrate government activity in the same tight centre, the more congestion becomes inevitable, regardless of how many interchanges are built.

“While road expansions and corridor upgrades remain important, they are insufficient as a standalone solution. Global urban planning evidence shows that where traffic demand is generated by concentrated destinations, increasing road capacity often produces temporary relief before congestion returns as demand rises to match the new capacity.

“Abuja must therefore shift from a road led response to a governance led, spatial planning strategy that reduces the daily need for mass commuting into the city centre,” he said.

Oluwafemi urged President Bola Tinubu and the Minister of the Federal Capital Territory, Nyesom Wike, to adopt an evidence-led decongestion programme anchored on accelerated satellite town development and administrative decentralisation.

“When governance processes become digitally enabled, congestion reduces organically, service delivery becomes faster, transparency improves, and the entire administration becomes more efficient.

“Finally, ADSC supports a broader national approach where suitable federal institutions, where feasible, are relocated to other states of the federation,” he added.