Double-lane roads cut through the hilly terrain. It is Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo’s showpiece – the place that symbolises his new and prosperous Nigeria.

On the outskirts of Abuja the road network is being rapidly expanded, with blue graders smoothing out new tar. Suburbs of new homes point to the emergence of a wealthy middle-class. A sign offers “affordable swimming pools”.

Yet half an hour out of town, Abuja’s secrets surface and the costs of “Africa’s fastest growing city” are tallied.

This is where the Gbagyi people were removed to during the 1970’s and after. The relocation came when the oil boom prompted government to transplant its federal capital from the chaos of Lagos, to a pristine new home in Abuja. The city needed potable water, and the Gbagyi were moved from the site of what is now the Usma Dam.

Ahead of the Commonwealth meeting, their situation symbolizes the poor development practices this meeting is trying to root out.

During the next few days, leaders will hear about the nexus between democracy and development, and the need for policies to be “people-centred”, “pro-poor”, and to avoid the trickle-down approach.

Abuja’s experience shows just how difficult it can be to put these exemplary practices in place.

Take the dam. It supplies water to Abuja some 30 kilometres away, but the villages of the Jigo, Peyi and Pmabwara are dry. In Jigo, yellow and green plastic containers line the dry mud tracks. Women walk down to the Usma River to get water.

Says community leader Ishaya Jigo, “Water, for whose course we were resettled, we can’t see it to drink for many more years to come. This is very incredible, but that is the truth.”

“The entire city thirty kilometres away and beyond has been served with potable water from our home, and yet (we) can’t see it to drink. What an irony of circumstances? What a giant paradox,” he adds.

Other ironies abound. While it may not have water, the area does have a connection to the mobile phone network, showing how unsynchronised development can lead to huge imbalances. Jigo now has cutting edge technology but no water – and the sense of hopeless in the community is palpable.

Peoples’ eyes look vacant; the cows are bone-thin – the children bloated with malnutrition. It is the antithesis of the prosperity and hope that Abuja was intended to represent.

When the city was started in 1996, its architects planned it as if it was a clean slate.

Resettlements were scheduled and compensation budgeted for, but corrupt officials ended up paying the residents between four and 22 dollars, roughly – much less than was allocated.

The community knew the money had been stolen, but felt there was no recourse to justice.

Young men and women look bored in the village – many can’t get to university because they are effectively stateless. Abuja’s planners forgot the people when they made it a federal capital territory – not a federal state. Under the current laws of the country, this makes it nigh impossible for people to sit for entrance exams or access other public resources.

The community in Garki also presents a chastening sight. You bump straight off a smooth highway into the cratered roads of this village. Unlike the Gbagyi, Garki’s people were not resettled, but promised integration into the smart new Abuja. The area is effectively Abuja’s old town – predating the new city by some four hundred years.

But, integration has not happened. The chief of Garki, Alhaji Usiyan Ndakupai, sits in his bedraggled palace – attendants swatting flies from him.

A man with a proud lineage, he is a sorry sight in what should be one of Abuja’s heritage sites. Instead, the area has become a slum. Recounting what has happened to his people ahead of the CHOGM meeting, the chief says wistfully that he hopes, one day, the wealth of Nigeria will indeed be common.