• Bemoans low investment in physical planning
The President, of the Nigerian Institute of Town Planners (NITP), Olutoyin Ayinde, has lamented the misconception of building approval for town planning.
He said the gross violation of ethical standards and loss of morals have worsened building collapse in the country.
Ayinde urged stakeholders to formulate and implement punishment for actors who handled collapsed structures to serve as a deterrent to others, hence, saving lives and property.
The NITP President made the call in Bauchi during his two-day advocacy visit to relevant ministries, higher institutions and Emir’s Palace. He lamented further that many state governments lack the political will to implement existing plans. For instance, he said in his visit to 23 states of the federation, only seven states had domesticated town planning law. Of the seven, three are implementing it at a breach, meaning they have planning organisation but are being headed by politicians, who are members of the construction industry. For me, that’s being done in breach because the person cannot understand the planning programmes. “Lagos, Ogun and one other state have been able to domesticate it. We have a state that did it but because of Geographical Information System (GIS) they abrogated it.”
He said buildings collapsed “as a result of loss of our morals, ethics and values. Most times, you see people compromising and neglecting to do their work. If construction is going on and the engineer is not supervising that is on us as a people. There is a system that is supposed to check it but if these people fail to do their work, something is wrong.
“One thing is paramount, if we have any wrongdoing, let’s punish the person who is wrong because that is the only way it can serve as a lesson to others in future. That’s why we are failing, we fail to punish and then other people feel encouraged to commit unethical practices.”
Ayinde and his team were at the Federal Polytechnic, Abubakar Tafawa Balewa University, Ministries of Housing and Environment, Land and Survey as well as the Palace of the Emir of Bauchi.
MEANWHILE, the institute has raised the alarm over the lack of investment in physical development plans and non-domestication of the urban and regional planning laws in the country.
Ayinde, who expressed concerns recently in Abuja, observed that disregard for urban and regional planning has brought to fore consequences that include building collapse, which is rooted in the collapse of values, morals and ethics, increasing clash between farmers and herders, the heightened incidence of crime and insecurity in the ungoverned spaces.
He said Nigeria would need to wake up or look forward to the doom that lies ahead of plan-less and lawless nations.
The NITP president said: “Apart from the domestication of Nigerian Urban And Regional Planning Law (NURP), another worrisome issue is the lack of investment in preparation of physical development plans in states. Without these plans, building plan approvals are baseless and illegal. Governors/politicians should first invest in planning before seeking to develop. Doing otherwise is subscribing to foolishness.”
He said: “Planning truly answers to visionary leadership. Unless governments are run through well-thought-out policies, planning will be difficult to locate. What planning does is to take you from your point of location to a destination you already determined through vision and policies. Many governments seem to have no destination, which is why they probably need no plans to get them anywhere and are thus satisfied with the mess they find themselves in.”
According to Ayinde, in the absence of policies that deliver good governance, the people resort to self-help, adding that no approach to development is more dangerous than when everyone takes their destiny in their own hands.
“The Nigerian Institute of Town Planners is able to classify the states visited into six categories those that have domesticated and are operating the NURP Law, those that have domesticated and are operating the Law in breach, and those that have not domesticated the Law, even if they are still working at it; some are said to be awaiting governor’s assent or at the houses of assembly”
“Those that have muddled up the whole system mistaking Geographical Information System for physical planning; states in this category include Kwara and, who have turned the process upside down.
Some of these states just need to be helped, those that see urban and regional planning as a revenue-generating tool; there are quite a lot doing this, making money out of confusion and then turning around to say the planners aren’t working.”