Kigali already has an elaborate master plan. Ramchiel, South Sudan’s proposed capital city, is already working on one.Such a plan is based on the premise that a city, like any woman or man, is organic and grows and wanes or prospers depending on the circumstances of their existence, whether the circumstances are willed or not. But it is all about planning and anticipating the rainy day, setting goals and charting a course towards attaining them. Except that, for whatever reason, things do not always go according to plan. Things that were supposed to be done, for some reason, are not done and much effort goes down the drain. This is what happened to Nairobi some decades ago, as told in an often quoted example of negligence, or, more precisely, not seizing the moment when it should have mattered. In one version of the Nairobi story, a high ranking official of the Kenyan government visited an Asian country to learn how its capital city had managed to grow and prosper “in such a short time”. According to this version the said his country could be any of the Asian tigers. He requested to borrow the city’s blue print to apply it in Nairobi. The Kenyan official was perplexed that the request seemed to elicit unnecessary prevarication and evading the question by the Asian host. Finally, the host relented and made a confession. “It is funny you should ask,” the Asian host replied. “Because the blue print actually was Nairobi’s. We borrowed it in the early 70s and all we did was to replace Nairobi with our city’s name on the blue print, and Kenya with our country’s name.” The fact is that Nairobi had a blue print, or master plan, that for whatever reason was never actualised despite its celebrated foresight.One may compare with other planned cities, if only to get an idea of how long it takes to build one. Plans to make Dodoma, the capital city of Tanzania were made in 1973, around the time Nairobi’s blueprint was in place. Tanzania’s National Assembly moved to Dodoma in 1996. Dar es Salaam remains the commercial capital, though hosting some of the Government offices.Abuja, Nigeria’s capital was planned and built mainly in the 1980s and officially became Nigeria’s capital in 1991. The key thing about these two new capital cities is that they were picked mainly for their central locations, though for Abuja it was also to move away from the noisy Lagos which was becoming too populous and unmanageable.Rwanda does not have the luxury of vast empty lands, and therefore, opted to take a different route with Kigali by overhauling the whole town and starting over with a new master plan to rebuild the capital.Ranchiel is the latest, also picked for similar reasons of centrality in the vastness of South Sudan. It was also the preferred location of Dr John Garang, the late charismatic South Sudanese leader.One more thing. Kigali and Ramchiel harbour similar ambitions to be the regional trade hub, spurred on by the structures they are putting in place including the international airport each of the two cities are planning to build. Despite its disappointing story, Nairobi has already staked its claim as the regional hub having made a head start. For the sake of argument, we may as well leave it out of picture. But between Kigali and Ramchiel, may the best city win.Twitter: @gituram
