By Dr. Amos Atumye Alao

I have written about flooding in Nigeria for several years. This is not a reaction to the latest images of flooded roads and stranded vehicles in Abuja. The problem is older, deeper and far more shaped by human decisions than we are willing to admit. Abuja is flooding again, and at some point we must stop calling it a surprise.

Heavy rainfall is a natural hazard, and extreme rain can overwhelm even well designed systems. Nigeria’s 2026 Annual Flood Outlook identified the Federal Capital Territory among areas at risk of flooding this year. The rainfall is real and should not be underestimated. What is not inevitable, however, is the scale of the damage we continue to experience. We did not create the rain, but we have created much of the vulnerability that turns rainfall into urban disaster.

Water follows topography and gravity. It does not respect property boundaries, estate walls or development approvals. When natural drainage corridors are blocked, narrowed or built upon, the water does not disappear. It finds another route. When floodplains are occupied, the water does not accept the new ownership. The landscape continues to function according to its own logic. The more important question, therefore, is not simply how much rain fell, but what happened to the land before the rain arrived?

Abuja was designed as a planned capital in which open spaces, waterways and natural systems were intended to work together with buildings, roads and other infrastructure. Rapid urbanisation and the high value of land have progressively eroded that logic. Undeveloped land is too often treated simply as a development opportunity. We have become skilled at calculating the value of land when something is built on it, and far less interested in the value of land deliberately left open to perform essential functions.

A valley may be carrying stormwater, a floodplain may be providing temporary storage, a wetland may be absorbing and filtering water, while a green corridor may be slowing runoff and allowing infiltration. These are not empty spaces waiting for development. They are working infrastructure that contributes directly to the safety and resilience of the city.

This is what Abuja still struggles to fully understand. Landscape is not decoration. A waterway, floodplain, wetland or green corridor can perform an infrastructure function. Sometimes the most valuable infrastructure is the land government has the discipline not to build upon.

The recent flooding made this difficult to ignore. Parts of Wuse 2, including areas around Adetokunbo Ademola Crescent, were affected, with motorists stranded and commercial activity disrupted. Wuse 2 is not a peripheral settlement. It is part of the economic heart of the capital. When flooding begins to disrupt established commercial districts, the problem can no longer be dismissed as isolated or temporary. It should prompt a more fundamental examination of how the city manages land, water and infrastructure.

When natural surfaces are replaced by buildings, concrete and extensive paving, more rainfall becomes rapid surface runoff. When waterways are narrowed or obstructed, their capacity is reduced. When floodplains and buffers are developed, space that once accommodated excess water is removed from the system. The result is greater runoff, greater pressure on drainage infrastructure and, ultimately, greater damage downstream.

Government has known about these vulnerabilities for years. In 2023, the FCDA directed Development Control to clear obstructions from waterways, specifically citing problems around Trademore, Lokogoma and adjoining areas. In 2025, the Abuja Metropolitan Management Council also moved against encroachment on floodplains and water channels in several districts. The problem, therefore, is not ignorance. It is the continued approval and toleration of development practices that increase that risk.

This brings us directly to development control. Development control exists to ensure that what is built is compatible with infrastructure, environmental conditions and public safety. When development occupies a floodplain or obstructs a watercourse, the consequences may not become apparent immediately. They become evident when rainfall exposes the weakness created months or years earlier.

Where developers knowingly build on waterways or protected corridors, they must be held accountable under the law. But accountability cannot stop with the developer. Land is allocated, applications are processed, plans are approved, construction is inspected and compliance is supposed to be monitored. When prohibited development becomes established, the questions are straightforward: who approved it, who inspected it, who certified compliance, and who failed to stop it? These questions go to the heart of whether the institutions responsible for protecting Abuja’s planning framework are fulfilling their mandate.

There is also an economic reality we prefer to avoid. When environmentally sensitive land is developed, the developer may capture the immediate financial gain while the wider public later carries much of the cost through flooded homes, damaged vehicles, lost business, disrupted livelihoods and emergency expenditure. Flooding is therefore not only an environmental problem. It is also an economic, planning and governance problem.

Building bigger drains after the damage is not a sustainable answer. Abuja needs properly designed and maintained drainage infrastructure, but engineering cannot indefinitely compensate for poor land use decisions. If we continue increasing impermeable surfaces while reducing the natural systems that absorb, store and slow water, we will remain trapped in an expensive cycle of development, flooding, emergency response and reconstruction.

Sometimes the most effective flood infrastructure is simply land left available for water. That is not wasted land. It is protected infrastructure.

This is why the ongoing review of the Abuja Master Plan matters. Supported by the Japan International Cooperation Agency, the review is an opportunity to confront the environmental limits within which the city can safely grow. It must do more than find space for more buildings. It must establish where development should not occur, what has already been compromised and what can still be restored.

Abuja’s catchments, waterways, floodplains, wetlands and green corridors must be treated as one interconnected landscape. The environmental function of land should be a core consideration in development decisions, not an afterthought. If the Master Plan review is serious about resilience, landscape systems cannot remain secondary. Landscape architects should form part of the technical conversation alongside planners, engineers, architects and environmental specialists. The Society of Landscape Architects of Nigeria is prepared to contribute to that work.

Abuja does not need less development. It needs better development that understands that waterways, floodplains and green corridors are infrastructure, not residual space. It needs consistent enforcement of development control, responsible developers and the political will to protect the natural systems that help keep the city functional.

The rain is natural, but the vulnerability is not entirely natural. Much of that vulnerability is the accumulated result of decisions made about land, development and infrastructure long before the clouds gathered.

If Abuja is serious about becoming a resilient capital, the response cannot end when the water recedes. The Master Plan review is an opportunity to examine how we arrived here and to decide whether the next version of the city will continue building over its environmental safeguards or finally treat them as essential infrastructure.

The question is no longer whether Abuja can afford to protect its waterways, floodplains and green infrastructure. The question is whether it can afford not to.

Dr. Alao is President, Society of Landscape Architects of Nigeria