The first time I heard the project of Ibukota Nusantara (IKN) as a new capital of Indonesia, I was shocked that one researcher who was complicit in the making said that there will be no poverty. How can a city have no poverty? Or how can you not allow poverty to exist in the new capital city? This question mumbled me for the first time. It sounds like Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) in the form of a city; something that is unreachable and has no basis in reality. Either you selectively gate the border of the ivory tower, or you solve ‘impoverishment’ to zero, both ways are improbable tasks to be done.
Recently I heard from the government official that IKN authority (Indonesian government) did not have enough funds to build it, and the investors did not invest as the expected price tag that the government wanted to build the futuristic city. The project nearly failed at the end of Joko Widodo terms as Indonesian president. It seems that the new administration (read: Prabowo) will face a mounted task of the magnificent dream of Jokowi.
In my conversation with a government official, she said that IKN has no funding anymore unless the government cuts spending on the other areas for this shiny capital. It demonstrates that the Indonesian government did not learn from other countries that move their capitals. Often the government prefers to learn from middle-power countries like Brazil and Australia that move theirs to Brasilia and Canberra respectively than learning from Nigeria and Tanzania who also move their capitals. If Indonesia wants to have a successful project, I think that Indonesian bureaucrats and technocrats need to look at Abuja and Dodoma where Indonesia shares the same problems with Nigeria and Tanzania more than Indonesia with Brazil and Australia.
Learning from Abuja is more feasible as Indonesia and Nigeria comparatively have a similar trajectory with similar concern for their large territory and the fact that the move of the capital is to decentralize the development. Abuja, a small governmental city should be celebrated as one of the successful moves of the capital in the developing countries where it became an administrative capital of Nigeria. It is a medium-small city, but it has a plan to be the center of the country. It is similar in many respects to the aims of the Indonesian government to move the capitals. Lagos, their biggest city is Jakarta in the sense that they face overcrowding, sinking to the sea, and fast paced urbanization that attracted poverty and informal settlement. In 1976, the military junta in Nigeria decided to move the capital, it was slow paced but in retrospect Abuja has shown to be one of successful moves of capital in the developing world as it is in the central of the country with a salubrious climate.
Another example is Dodoma, little known in the world that Tanzania’s capital is not Dar Es Salaam. This small city has become an administrative capital of Tanzania since Julius Nyerere era. It is not as grandiose as Abuja, but it serves its purpose as the seat of the government. Indonesian IKN can be this or Abuja depending on the governments will where moving the capital is feasible, but it needs a legwork and understanding that moving capital does not equate with the decentralization of economic growth. Jakarta will and is still the center of the Indonesian economy, with or without the new capital.
The dilemma that the Indonesian government is facing right now is how to move it and at what cost should it build, ceremonious pomp of the new toy or under the radar move of the administration. I think it is better for Indonesia to move the capital more slowly than right now where Jokowi needs to understand one thing, it will not be under his nose that the capital will finish, and work as intended.
Rather than flashy dreams of Jokowi, the new capital should essentialize the basic need of the country, that is as the administrative capital, not the ivory tower of the nation-state. I acknowledge that the vision of the new Indonesian capital is an old new narrative of successive administrations, from Sukarno to Jokowi. To bring it to reality, Jokowi needs to understand that IKN is not a Prambanan temple that was mythically built in one night under the mighty king’s promise.
At the end of the day, I think the new capital should start like Dodoma purely for administration rather than for the planning of the futuristic society. Or even Abuja that is successful as a capital city that has amenities. Dreaming up IKN as Nirvana would not bring a good thing to the Indonesian nation-state, it only drains the resources that can be used to develop more important things like education and infrastructure in the Outer Islands. Jokowi by no means is the mythical king, if he is a pragmatic kingmaker, then he should understand that his dream is a slow-paced realization like a sloth who craves a bark.
