Answer: Nigeria started talking about moving the capital from Lagos to a new site. Lagos was congested, polluted, and didn’t have sufficient infrastructure. It was hot and humid. But worse, it was coastal and therefore open to attack. This was the same reasoning that led Brazil to move its capital from Rio de Janeiro to Brasilia. But the results were different.
The energy crisis of the 1970s may have in part been responsible for the new capital of Abuja: Nigeria came into considerable wealth at that time as a result of the high price of petroleum, a world market situation that stimulated innovation around the world including the development of the Alaska pipeline. Nigeria now had the funds to build the new capital. But immediate impetus to build came through political change. When the government of General Yakubu Gowon ended on July 29, 1975, the new head of state, General Murtala R. Mohammed, appointed a panel to evaluate moving the capital. Of particular concern was what to do with Lagos which was at the time both a federal and a state center of government. The panel returned with a verdict: move the federal capital.
