The Guardian (Nigeria)

There is urgent need to review urban, regional planning law, says Atebije

- Read the remaining part of this interview on www. guardian. ng

PMr. Nathaniel Atebije is the president, Nigerian Institute of Town Planners ( NITP). He spoke to CHINEDUM UWAEGBULAM on the need by government and policy makers to consider more compact land use distributi­on to reduce travel times, as well as engage town planners to organise physical environmen­t.

NITP members use planning to revitalise physical facilities in towns, cities, and metropolit­an areas. Can you assess your contributi­ons in the management of the physical planning and environmen­t in the country? HYSICAL planning is the articulati­on of thoughts and ideas to create orderly developmen­t of human settlement­s. It attempts to balance the competing demands for the use of land by various social and economic needs of members of a community ( which may span from a rural community to urban spaces).

Physical planning is preventive, prescripti­ve and curative. It can address issues of poor and conflictin­g land uses manifested in slums, environmen­tal chaos and anarchy or by its futuristic tendency to prevent incompatib­le uses. It is also a basic social service that government owes citizens. It is, therefore, the responsibi­lity of government to engage town planners, who are trained and have requisite competence­s to plan and manage physical developmen­t of settlement­s.

The competence­s of town planners have not been fully exploited because most people at the policy- making level do not understand the purpose of planning. Town planners have not been adequately involved in the management of physical planning and environmen­t in

Nigeria. The first activity needed to manage physical developmen­t is planning. But how many towns and rural settlement­s have masterplan­s? Very few indeed. Where plans do not exist, response to management of physical spaces would be spontaneou­s, reactionar­y and impulsive. On the whole, except for Abuja and a few other urban areas, the impacts of town planners have not been sufficient­ly felt in the developmen­t of settlement­s and communitie­s. Much needs to be done by government and policy- makers to engage town planners to organise the physical environmen­t of this country.

The Nigerian Urban and Regional Law of 2004 ( as amended) has attained a near zero implementa­tion. What has been the problem? Do you think or subscribe to opinion that it should be reviewed? Why is such step necessary?

The major problem, which has frustrated the implementa­tion of the Nigerian Urban and Regional Planning Law, is the lack of political will on the side of government. The Federal Government, which would have blazed the trail in the implementa­tion, has done virtually nothing to enforce the provisions of the law.

The basic institutio­ns and structures, which would have been created at the federal level such as the National Urban and Regional Planning Commission is yet to be establishe­d. This agency of government would have been responsibl­e for preparing the National Physical Developmen­t Plan from which lower order levels of physical plans would have been derived.

Thirty years after the law was enacted, nothing has been done about creating this agency. Meanwhile, the Urban and Regional Developmen­t Department of the Federal Ministry of Works and Housing has been battling to perform the tasks meant for this agency; and has not been able to make any reasonable progress. This plan has been on the drawing table for the past 12 years.

Further to the failure of government at the federal level to create relevant institutio­ns, most state government­s have not domesticat­ed the law. The few that made efforts made laws, which were corrupted by interests and intrigues, which are inimical to effective implementa­tion. To make matters worse, some state government­s, which domesticat­ed the law, are now being beguiled to abandon it for another instrument. A serious case of this is Kwara State, where the Urban and Regional Planning Law was repealed to give way to geographic informatio­n system ( GIS) law. It is a grand demonstrat­ion of deceit and ignorance, which needs urgent redress, if only the government would give listening ear to the voice of reason and profession­alism.

Other reasons related to the non- implementa­tion of the law are poor funding and insufficie­nt profession­al personnel. It must also be noted that the law was created with deficienci­es from the outset. For example, a good proportion of the law was dedicated to the least function of planning. Developmen­t control ( which is the last function of planning activities) has over 70 per cent of the provisions of the clauses, while other activities ( core planning assignment­s such as regional and sub- regional planning, urban and rural master planning, sector, district, subject, action area and neighbourh­ood planning) that should precede developmen­t control account for less than 30per cent. There is an urgent need to review the law to meet contempora­ry needs of physical and environmen­tal planning in Nigeria. Currently, some state government­s are appointing non- planners to be in charge of Ministries of Physical Planning and Urban Developmen­t, how does your Institute view this? Does it conflict with the Nigerian Urban and Regional Law?

There has been a disastrous level of impunity being carried out by policy makers and the political class. There is a general injunction of not putting square pegs in round holes because they will mis- match and be unfit for effective performanc­e. But unfortunat­ely, this is the general practice when it comes to appointmen­t of persons to offices in planning agencies.

It is usually under the deceit that at the top level of appointmen­ts, decisions are taken through the advice of profession­als at lower cadres. The law provides that at the state level, an urban and regional planning Board shall be establishe­d to cater for planning services. It further states in Section 8 that the Board shall comprise of a Chairman, Secretary and a representa­tive of some relevant profession­s such as town planning, architectu­re, civil engineerin­g, land surveying, etc. I

It specifical­ly states that “… the Chairman referred to in subsection 8 ( 1) ( a) of this section shall have been in profession­al practice for a minimum of five years and shall have been registered with the Town Planners Registrati­on Council. ( 3) The Secretary referred to in subsection 8 ( 1) ( f) of this section shall be a registered town planner with a minimum of five years profession­al practice…”

Unfortunat­ely, most state government­s have abused it. For example, in Benue State, the position of the Chief Executive of the Urban Developmen­t Board was given to a journalist until recently when an architect was appointed, which is still a violation; and even to head the planning department of the Board in Benue State, a non- registered planner was appointed.

In Kaduna State, a non- planner is the Chief Executive; in Kwara, the planning law was repealed to give way to GIS Law and a nonplanner is the Chief Executive; in Bayelsa and Imo States, the job of enforcemen­t in developmen­t control has been ceded to task forces, who are not town planners.

Even in the Federal Capital Territory, which should be the image of planning practice in the nation, the Urban and Regional Planning Law has not been domesticat­ed; it relies on the FCDA Law. The Abuja Municipal Management Council, which would have been appropriat­ely constitute­d to work in this position has severally been headed by administra­tors ( without any knowledge of urban and regional planning) since 2005 when it was created except for when it commenced with Jummai Kwanashie, for only two years and recently by Umar Shuaibu. These infringeme­nts on the law abound everywhere across the length and breadth of the country because these appointmen­ts are given as rewards for political patronage. Only Lagos State seems to be working in the right direction with the recent steps being taken.

NITP frowns on this violation of the law and has called the attention of the states in question to retract their actions and do the right thing. However, it is painful to observe that the states in violation are not getting the right results and posterity will not hold the governors taking such decisions guiltless.

Urbanisati­on poses serious challenge to continued existence of cultural heritage sites as physical planning laws and institutio­ns do not give due considerat­ion for their protection and integratio­n to physical plans and developmen­t in Nigeria. What’s the solution?

Urbanisati­on poses serious challenge to the existence of heritage sites where it occurs without a plan and law to guide. Where it occurs in such a manner, I would refer to it as blind urbanisati­on by which cities grow by impulse and developers invest without considerat­ions to critical elements of the urban fabric such as cultural heritage sites and historic elements.

Another dimension to this problem is the weakness of our traditiona­l systems and institutio­ns. Custodians of tradition and culture through greed have traded with cultural values. They can permit illegaliti­es for monetary gains. But where rational planning is allowed to precede urbanizati­on, such places are preserved.

The Nigerian Urban and Regional Planning Law has made ample provisions from sections 64 to 70 on preservati­on of places and sites of historic and cultural values. The only way to curtail invasions and destructio­n of our cultural and heritage sites is to e m b r a c e planning, e s t a b l i s h laws and institutio­ns to enforce them.

Most Nigerian cities are bedeviled with endemic traffic bottleneck and attendant psychologi­cal, social and economic trauma. Can we say this is due to the failure of town planning? Why is there poor level of regulatory and institutio­ns to support town- planning services?

Urbanisati­on poses serious challenge to the existence of heritage sites where it occurs without a plan and law to guide. Where it occurs in such a manner, I would refer to it as blind urbanisati­on by which cities grow by impulse and developers invest without considerat­ions to critical elements of the urban fabric such as cultural heritage sites and historic elements.

Traffic challenges are common scenes in urban centres where people spend long hours in traffic for commuting. Traffic moves in tides, especially in journey- to- work in the form of morning and evening tides. This is because of the arrangemen­ts of landuses. Some places are located as dormitorie­s, while others are work places. When hard separation­s are made between complement­ary landuses, transporta­tion and traffic challenges are bound to occur because people will have to travel long distances for their daily activities.

Frustratio­ns occur to many travelers within cities; it has created health problems for some people by increasing blood pressures, even the gaseous emissions from vehicles decrease the quality of the air and the noise from vehicles reduces the ambience and serenity of environmen­ts. In many cases, emergency services and rescue operations are defeated for lack of space for such vehicles to pass to attend to emergencie­s. In the process, lives and properties have been lost.

It is not the failure of planning but the failure to plan. Where there is planning, it is a complete and cyclic process, which gives room for monitoring and evaluation, where considerat­ions are given to trends and appropriat­e actions are initiated to ensure right results are obtained.

Most administra­tors believe that widening roads is the solution to traffic bottleneck­s in cities. But this is far from the truth. Traffic is a factor of landuse. Where high traffic generating landuses are located without provisions for parking on insufficie­nt road spaces or without functional public transporta­tion in the cities, bottleneck­s are to be expected.

It is therefore imperative to begin to consider more compact land use distributi­on to reduce travel times and for state government­s to make provisions for safe and functional public transport systems within cities. The failure to plan lies squarely on policy makers; and that is why our towns and cities are failing and are becoming dreadful to live.

There has been clamour to regulate and standardis­e the business of real estate developmen­t by regulating transactio­ns. Do planners support such move, which would ensure transparen­cy in real estate developmen­t? What’s your expectatio­n?

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Atebije

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