Paper short abstract:

This paper analyses infrastructure as an assemblage that stores information and assures continuity during political upheaval, with the Nigerian Federal Military Government awarding major contracts in the 1970s to the German-Nigerian engineering company, Julius Berger Nigeria.

Paper long abstract:

The first military period (1966-1979) following Nigeria’s independence in 1960, saw intensive investment in infrastructure with large-scale oil-wealth projects awarded to German-Nigerian engineering firm, Julius Berger Nigeria (JBN) in the 1970s. JBN would grow in influence to become a parastatal, directly advising the Federal Military Government on infrastructure programmes, with Nigerian projects drawn and detailed at their head office in Wiesbaden. A crisis of congestion at the Lagos port in 1975, precipitated adoption of design-driven solutions at urban level, and in that same year, the state would decide to relocate the capital from Lagos to Abuja, with the pattern of investment in infrastructure moving to northern Nigeria from the 1980s. The military state is understood as a technocratic form that has played a significant role in Nigeria’s urban development. At a time of political upheaval, the narrative control and information-management by the state would take a dual form of restrictions on the Press and implementation of infrastructures as ‘built monuments’, testament to the effectiveness of military rule. Using the concepts that make up assemblage in Deleuze, this paper will explore how the Nigerian State viewed urban infrastructures as a form of information, and as information storage structures, providing narrative continuity and evidencing state achievement, and affirming the reputation of the JBN company by extension. This research has lessons relevant to study of contemporary African military governments, foregrounding infrastructure as a commitment made to citizens, with potential for the study of information flows between government and the population.