Numbers and grids

There's something I don't understand about Abuja which might speak of a larger issue, I'm not sure. Given that Abuja is a new city, I don't understand the rationale behind the urban plan. I'm hugely in favour of gridded cities along the New York/Latin American/Roman model. They are easy to navigate, easy to plan and build in, and easy to maintain and make good capitals if one begins from carte blanche.

However, Abuja is a fiendishly difficult city to get to know. Many of the streets are crescents that loop back on themselves, so travelling along one road, you come across the same intersecting road at different points (very confusing). On the larger roads, there are many flyovers which look identical - its difficult to know which turning to take - it reminds me of the new town near where I am from - Telford - which is hideously difficult to navigate, let alone love.

In general, Abuja's street loop and swirl all over the place. After a couple of years, I have a modicum of understanding of Maitama and Wuse II, but get lost very easily in Garki and Asokoro. As for places further out such as Nyanya and Karo, or the satellite towns of Kubwa etc - forget it. Matters are made worse by the bizarre unfathomable numbering system. There's Area 1, 2, 3, 4 all the way up to at least Area 11 (perhaps there's an Area 12?) These don't appear on any maps of Abuja, but there are signposts here and there. Some of these Areas appear contiguous, others not. Then there are various Zones (I think up to Zone 6). I think that the Area areas refer to the earliest parts of the city, built over ten years ago. And I suspect that the Zones refer to areas within Wuse (oh by the way, there's Wuse I and Wuse II, but I've never heard of Wuse III so perhaps it doesnt exist). Its all very confusing.

Lagos, in contrast, is a much easier city to navigate, even though it is many times bigger. Lagos has a different problem: there are often only single routes to take between A and B - for instance if you are travelling from Ikoyi to Festac, or VI down the Lekki Expressway - there is only one road to take.

My suspicion that logical numbering systems are not favoured in Nigeria is further confirmed by the national TV network NTA. Instead of having NTA1, NTA2, NTA3, or NTA Abuja, NTA Ibadan (ie numbers for national stations and names for local ones) - they have NTA Channel 2 Station 5 etc. Its impossible to know which channel is national, which local and so on. Can anyone explain the NTA channel numbering system? How did it come about?

All the above might sound over-fussy and not a little nerdy: the insights of a former trainspotter (I confess I was - from the age of 10 to 12 - there was little else to do in my village but cycle 5 miles with a picnic of sandwiches with my friends and watch the trains woosh by). But perhaps also it refers to a structural illogicality, a planning weakness at work here? Or perhaps I am completely off the ball, and for instance the Abuja urban system has another source - in the deliberate complexities of Muslim urban design?