Three years after the FCT Administration announced a plan to introduce a standard street-addressing system across Abuja, questions remain over the extent of its implementation, as residents in parts of the capital still rely on landmarks, phone calls and digital location pins to help visitors and service providers find their homes.
The situation is particularly common in newer estates, developing districts and parts of the satellite towns, where houses may have addresses on official documents but lack clearly visible house numbers or street signs that make them easy to locate.
In some cases, residents directing visitors to their homes resort to descriptions such as “after the filling station”, “opposite the church” or “behind the estate”, while others simply send a WhatsApp or Google Maps location.
The FCTA had in August 2023 entered into an agreement with a United States-based Geographic Information System, GIS, company to develop a standard street-addressing system for Abuja, in order to improve the identification and management of properties across the FCT.
The agreement was signed by the Abuja Geographic Information Systems, AGIS, on behalf of the FCTA, with the Environmental Systems Research Institute, ESRI, for the development and deployment of a GIS platform for a standard street-addressing scheme in the FCT.
According to an AGIS press statement issued on August 11, 2023, the project was designed to develop a “standard street addressing scheme/system in the Federal Capital Territory” using the Nigerian standard for the Abuja Smart City development.
The statement said the partnership would commence with a pilot street project, while ESRI President, Jack Dangermond, donated GIS software worth over $100,000 to support the initiative.
Dangermond, who was among the consultants involved in the development of the Abuja Master Plan in the 1970s, made the donation as part of his contribution to “the development and efficient management of the City”, according to the statement.
Despite that move, the problem persist, with the rapid expansion of Abuja into new residential districts and satellite communities, raising concerns about how effectively the capital’s addressing system supports emergency response, delivery services, property administration and urban planning.
The Abuja Geographic Information Systems, AGIS, the FCT’s official geospatial agency, lists street naming and house numbering among its functions and says it provides geospatial information infrastructure for the territory.
The administration had said the standard addressing initiative was expected to improve emergency response and dispatch, courier and postal services, utility delivery, disaster management, census, property registration, valuation, taxation and urban planning.
However, three years after the announcement, residents’ experiences suggest that the challenge of making addresses easily identifiable on the ground remains in parts of the territory.
A resident of one of the newer estates in Abuja, who asked not to be named, said visitors and delivery riders frequently struggle to locate his house despite being given the estate’s name and house number.
“Most times, I have to come out to meet them or send my live location. If I just give them the address, they will still call me to ask where the house is,” the resident said.
A delivery rider operating in the city also told our correspondent that incomplete or difficult-to-identify addresses frequently force riders to spend additional time locating customers.
The challenge, however, goes beyond commercial deliveries. The FCTA had identified emergency response as one of the major areas that could benefit from a standardised addressing system, making the accuracy and accessibility of physical addresses particularly important during medical emergencies, fires, floods and other incidents.
An address that exists in official records but cannot be easily identified by a first-time visitor may therefore present a different problem from simply having no address.
AGIS documentation for land applications requires applicants to provide details including house number, street name, city district and city or town, underscoring the role of addresses in the administration of properties within the FCT.
The agency also says its geospatial operations cover plots across the city, satellite towns and area councils, including field activities to identify the physical location of plots.
But the existence of geospatial information does not necessarily mean that the information is readily usable by residents, emergency responders, transport operators and other people trying to locate a particular building.
The situation is further complicated by the continuous development of new estates and communities, where roads and buildings may emerge faster than street signs and house-numbering systems are updated.
Wike signs 26,272 C-of-Os in three years
FCT Minister, Nyesom Wike, has signed 26,272 Certificates of Occupancy since President Bola Tinubu assumed office in May 2023.
The figure, according to the FCT Administration, is 17,575 higher than the 8,697 C-of-Os produced and signed between 2010 and 2023.
A statement issued on Sunday by the Senior Special Assistant to the FCT Minister on Public Communications and Social Media, Lere Olayinka, disclosed the figures, stating that the achievement was in line with the Renewed Hope Administration of the President Bola Tinubu-led administration, as well as to aid the ease of doing business in the FCT.
“To aid the ease of doing business in the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), and in line with President Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s Renewed Hope Agenda, a total of 26,272 Certificates of Occupancy (C-of-O) have been signed by the FCT Minister, Nyesom Wike, since the President assumed office.
“This is against a total of 8,697 produced and signed between 2010 and 2023. During the five and a half years administration of President Goodluck Jonathan, a total of 5,500 Certificates of Occupancy were produced and signed while 3,197 were produced and signed during the eight years administration of President Muhammadu Buhari,” the statement partly read.
According to Olayinka, many beneficiaries of the 26,272 C-of-Os signed under Wike received their land allocations more than 10 years ago.
He explained that a C-of-O could serve as collateral for commercial loans, mortgages and business expansion, adding that delays in obtaining the documents could limit access to funding for small and medium-sized businesses.
The statement said the FCT Administration has streamlined the process for issuing the documents, including the introduction of an automated notification system to inform allottees when their documents are ready for collection.
“The moment necessary payments are made, land allottees can now get their C-of-O within two weeks. Also, an automated notification has been introduced to ensure that land allottees are informed when their documents are ready for collection,” Olayinka said.
He attributed delays under previous administrations to inefficiencies which, he said, discouraged landowners from completing their payments.
The statement further disclosed that the FCT Administration had granted 2,521 Consents to Assign and 177 Consents to Mortgage during the first three years of the Tinubu administration.
