Worried by the apparent proliferation of slums, informal settlements, and congestion in the country, professional town planners and estate developers converged on Abeokuta, Ogun State, to deliberate and chart a path towards equitable and sustainable town, urban, and regional development.
The two-day workshop, with the theme “The Impact of Emerging Technologies on Urban and Regional Planning: Challenges and Opportunities,” was organised by the Association of Town Planning Consultants of Nigeria (ATOPCON).
The discussants, largely from the town planning profession and notable players in the built industry, including the Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Pelican Valley Nigeria Limited, Dr Babatunde Adeyemo, agreed that the government is central to planning, enforcement of building guidelines, and provision of essential services, particularly infrastructure, to ignite development and create liveable human settlements.
They expressed concern that places like Allen Avenue, Ikeja, and Adeniran Ogunsanya in Lagos were, in the 1960s and 1970s, marked as residential areas until shops and clubs started creeping in, forcing many of the residents to relocate as the residential settings steadily lost their character and sanity to surging commercial activities.
They equally pointed out Admiralty Way in Lekki and dozens of other places in Lagos, which have lost their original design as residential settings, regrettably giving way to commercial and social activities because the government or its relevant agencies were not there to enforce physical planning and building regulations.
In Ogun State, the Mowe and Ibafo corridors of the state and some other places came into sharp focus. It was noted that there were calls decades ago for proper planning of the area to ensure sanity and sustainable development in the environment, but the calls remain largely unheeded while the axis morphed into a mega slum.
However, they pushed for a reversal of the ugly trends in the two states, seeking planning regulations that are supportive, mutually beneficial, and promote growth and development.
The President of ATOPCON, Tpl. Bisi Adedire, in his intervention, identified multiple taxations and levies on land across ministries and government agencies as issues affecting private sector operators in the built industry.
While acknowledging that the levies are necessary to enhance the government’s capacity to provide essential services to drive development, Adedire said the burden hurts property developers, especially when they are compelled to pay everything upfront before construction has started on their plots of land. He urged the government to look into it and adopt a system that would be beneficial to all stakeholders.
He recognised planning regulations as something beneficial to everyone but lamented that citizens, including individuals in government, sometimes exploit weaknesses in the system to cut corners and contravene planning regulations.
Adedire also cited examples of government officials cutting corners to achieve their selfish interests, citing a case where government officials allegedly appropriated about 2.2 hectares of land from the 45 hectares belonging to one of his clients.
Also speaking, the CEO of Pelican Valley, Babatunde Adeyemo, said Nigeria has no problem or difficulty formulating brilliant policies, adding that the problem lies with implementation.
He advised the government to be more practical and realistic with land acquisition by always following due process as well as providing basic services or infrastructure necessary to ignite development in the acquired areas, warning that development would remain elusive in the estate until the right things are put in place.
He said: “The rules are there. I think what we need to do is strategic orientation. There should be proper orientation and enforcement for people to follow laid-down rules and regulations because these rules are coined by people and they didn’t fall from the sky. Once we are able to enforce that, I believe we will be able to better the lives of people and the government.
“The problem in Nigeria is not about policy formulation. It is all about implementation. When formulating the policies, I always believe that people in authority—president, governors, and ministers—have advisers before they go into acquisition. Let me talk about Muhammadu Buhari Estate area in Kobape; the problem wasn’t all about acquisition, I believe it is the wrong implementation of acquisition.
“When you observe village excision, it is a win-win thing towards planning and development. If you have 24 villages, you clear all the villages and acquire thousands of hectares of land, but you cannot forget how you intend to ignite development in that arena.
“Does the government have the financial muscle to build the kind of infrastructure for such thousands of houses that will make people develop confidence to start living in that area?
“Government will not put all the funds meant to be shared with the other sectors on housing alone. That is why some of the public institutions foot-drag despite being in vantage positions.
“So, we need to be more practical and strategic when we are doing land acquisitions. You don’t just go to clear villages when you don’t have the capacity to put infrastructure in place to ignite the development. Who is going to be the first person to live there?”
Also contributing, Professor Muyiwa Agunbiade attributed the tension over land matters to the government’s actions and inactions, saying a situation where even the government is involved in grabbing land from citizens under the guise of acquisition is not the best for development.
Tpl. Agunbiade, who is of the Department of Urban and Regional Planning, University of Lagos, advocated for digital solutions to planning, lamenting that despite the world going digital on all fronts, government operatives are unwilling or reluctant to embrace it because they are profiting from the analogue system to the disadvantage of the rest of the citizens.
“The fact remains that government owns no land. And they are forcibly taking land from people, and that is what is creating tension. It is the government that is the land grabber; they are the ones grabbing land.
“Where do we have digital plans in Ogun State? We said years ago about this Mowe-Ibafo corridor that they should plan it because it would become a slum. Now it is a mega slum, and it will take trillions of naira and World Bank loans to fix the Mowe-Ibafo axis. We said this thing 20 years ago.
“The only solution to solving this problem is to go digital, and the government is not doing anything about it. Neither the government nor practitioners in government are doing anything about it. In fact, it is the government officials that are not willing to go digital because they are the ones benefiting from it (the analogue system). Let’s go digital.”
Also speaking at the event, Odunayo Ojo, an estate surveyor and valuer and the Managing Director & Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of UPDC, a property development company, said: “Government is central to everything. If people are not happy with what is happening in government, they have the power to take action. The Administration of Land Decree of 1978 puts land in the hands of the governor.
“No society can move forward without law and order. The private sector thrives in the building industry when rules are followed. The key to unlocking this relationship between the governments and the private sector is the implementation of building guidelines and regulations.”
In his submission, the Senior Special Adviser to the Ogun State Governor on Urban & Regional Planning, Tpl. Abiodun Adewolu, identified government challenges regarding physical planning and development.
Adewolu said despite the regulations in place to serve public interest, problems of infrastructure deficiency, road networks, water supply, and the issue of informal settlements, which have grown into slums, as well as the problem of congestion in all ramifications, are bound to make government efforts at finding solutions a daunting task.
He urged citizens to follow physical planning regulations and development laws as they are in the public interest and a product of lawmakers, who are representatives of the same people.
Adewolu said, “Planning is a response to situations that affect society negatively. It is to create an environment that is liveable, where we can live comfortably devoid of any risk. The interest of the people should be injected into the development plan, be it town, urban, district or regional plan. It should spell out where schools should be, where markets or commercial activities should be, so that there will be no room for informal settlements that grow into slums.
“So, in the end, everyone will live a good life, but unfortunately, it is structured in a public sector-led process. Revenue generation, not public interest. Town planning is not meant to be revenue generation; it should be totally in the public interest, but the situation has changed, and that is why we are having this dilemma to a large extent.”
Similarly, Oluwole Sotire, an engineer and Permanent Secretary, Ministry of Physical Planning and Urban Development, Lagos State, said the government has a responsibility to render service to the people it serves but also noted that citizens are also expected to pay land taxes/levies.
“We must first of all understand that citizens have to pay tax or levies to the government. Whether it is equitable is another question. However, efforts should be made to involve proper stakeholders and the rest of the citizens to ensure beneficial planning and good governance,” he said.
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