Karu Urban Area
|
Greater Karu Urban Area Urban Karu |
|
|---|---|
| Urban area | |
| Country |
 Nigeria
|
| State |
|
| Principal towns |
New Nyanya Mararaba New Karu Ado Masaka |
| Government | |
| • Body | Karu Local Government |
| Area | |
| • Urban | 400 km2 (200 sq mi) |
| Population | |
| • Urban | 2,000,000 |
| • Urban density | 500/km2 (1,000/sq mi) |
| Time zone | WAT (UTC+1) |
| • Summer (DST) | not observed (UTC+1) |
| Website | [] |
The Karu Urban Area is an urban area in central Nigeria. The urban area is majorly located in the Nigerian state of Nasarawa, but with some parts stretching into the boundaries of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT). It has an area of 40,000 hectares (400 km²) and a population of some 2 million.
It is one of the fastest growing urban areas in the world, with a growth rate of 40 percent recorded annually. It consists of towns that developed as a result of urban sprawl from Abuja.
From west to east, the urban area includes towns like Kurunduma, New Nyanya, Mararaba, New Karu, Ado, Masaka and newer, fast-growing towns such as One Man Village (which contains over 1 million people) and Gidan Zakara. Since the beginning of the 20th century, these districts have grown together into a large urban area and a major commercial centre of central Nigeria.
In the 1970s, it was decided to relocate Nigeria's capital from Lagos to the centre of the country. The site chosen for the new capital was very close to the villages that made up the present Karu Area, which was a sparsely populated area typical of Nigeria's Middle Belt.
In the 1980s, the Nigerian government began transferring its activities to Abuja, and countries began relocating their embassies there. The Economic Community of West African States moved its headquarters to Abuja, and OPEC moved its regional headquarters there. The result was a rapid increase in Abuja's population, which more than doubled in a short time. The Karu area was also affected, as its villages experienced rapid growth due to their close proximity to the new capital.
In 2003, Mallam Nasir Ahmad el-Rufai, then minister of the Federal Capital Territory of Nigeria, wished to regain control of the population explosion of Abuja, which had led to the deterioration of the city's infrastructure. He started a campaign of demolition, using bulldozers to demolish structures and clear shanty towns. The campaign made hundreds of thousands of residents homeless, as the remaining decent accommodation was highly priced, and lands approved for residential areas were too expensive for those on an average income, because of Abuja's status as the capital of Africa's oil giant, Nigeria, a country where most people live on less than US$2 a day. These people were thus driven to find affordable accommodation in the neighbouring satellite towns. Because it is so close to Abuja, many of them went to the Karu area, which underwent a population explosion that quickly transformed it into an urban area.
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Wikipedia