When town planners gathered in Aba, Abia State, only one thing was on their minds: how to make the Enyimba City one to adore. SUNNY NWANKWO reports
What do you not know about Aba? Home of creativity and showpiece of local technology, where virtually everything made can be re-produced.
But what do Aba people think of their famous vibrant city? They want a new face, one with beauty and allure. They want the commercial hub of Abia State restored to the master plan and beautified.
Once a farmers’ town, Aba has grown into an economic giant in the Southeast, serving as a gateway to some Southeast and Southsouth states.
This growth has overstretched its amenities, building pattern and distorted the colonial master plan. People now build on every available space including waterways, leading to flooding during torrential rains.
The distortion of the original master plan has not only contributed in defacing the city, it has equally affected the aesthetics of the eastern commercial pride.
It will be recalled that the state governor Theodore Orji in 2012 during a press briefing, threatened to pull down 1,800 buildings allegedly built on sewer lanes which were obstructing free flow of water through the canals.
Orji said that efforts he had made to build the city had been stalled by flooding, which resulted from the blocking of drains and sewer lanes, alleging that those whose houses were built on drainages did not get approvals before erecting such structures.
The state governor, did not stop at making such policy statement, he went further to constitute a taskforce on environment and allied matters headed by Rtd. Capt. Awa Udensi whose legal framework or mandate was to demolish all manner of illegal structures in the state, including houses or structures built on waterways which are still ongoing.
Apparently worried by the ugly sight and reported cases of economic loss associated with occasioned flooding Town Planning Practitioners who are trained in the science and art of spatial ordering of land use for the purpose of creating a well ordered, beautiful and functional environment in the state initiated annual luncheon to brainstorm and foster ways of assisting the government in making the state habitable and conducive for its citizenry.
In a lecture “Urban Planning in Nigerian Cities” delivered at the event by Dr. Kingsley Chijioke Ogboi of the department of Urban and Regional Planning, University of Nigeria Enugu Campus, he examined the overwhelming challenges of urban planning in Nigeria and the consequences of planlessness, mirroring Abia State situation.
According to Ogboi, the situation in Aba reflects vividly the environmental conditions in many Nigerian cities which has led to “wild” sprawl and disorderly urban growth in many Nigerian cities despite the existence of urban laws, he attributed to poor infrastructure (or lack of them), uncontrolled housing developments and land uses.
Ogboi, listing disorderliness and chaotic urban settlements, poor sanitary condition, urban congestion compounded with traffic gridlocks, crime and urban violence, threat of disease outbreaks due to squalor conditions, environmental degradation among others as some of the consequences of planlessness and poor urban development said that Aba as a city that has laid its foundation on commerce and with huge potentials including population and development, it needed to improve on its business environment and city management, develop adequate infrastructure.
According to the guest speaker, cities like London, Paris, Frankfurt, Dublin etc have been able to stand the taste of time because they are well planned and effectively managed, adding that the more a city improves in planning and basic infrastructure and amenities, the more it will continue to attract investment that will in turn accelerate the growth of that city.
He expressed hope that a joint partnership of private sector experts/entrepreneurs and government in planning and would help to meet the challenges posed by urban development.
The chairman House of Representatives Committee on Climate Change, Hon. Eziuche Ubani and chairman of the occasion lauded the group for such initiative, adding that the event has provided room for intellectually-stimulated discussions that could turn around the fortunes of the city.
Hon. Ubani in a paper titled “Mainstreaming Climate Change Response in Urban Planning”, recalled “Going back in time, we can say, in relation to the question, we can say that urbanization proceeded in a deliberate and orderly manner in the 1940s. Early patterns of development in Aba for example, indicate that the chaos in spatial management was not envisaged by colonial administrators as clear roles and powers were given to planning professionals by extant ordinances and statutes. The crisis we have in urban management cannot be divorced from the general crises of growth and development of Nigeria, where decay hugs development in equal intensity.”
The lawmaker who noted that the issue of climate change could be addressed through a planned housing system or arrangement called on town planning practitioners to use more techniques of planning human settlements and land use practices to address issues of climate change in the country.
Abia State Commissioner for Physical Planning and Urban Renewal, Elder Godwin Nna, represented by the permanent secretary, Elder Bernard Ogbonna however expressed the desire of the state government to partner with stakeholders/professionals in the planning and development of cities to tackle the challenges of physical planning in the state and the country at large.
Elder Ogbonna, the permanent secretary of the ministry stated that it has become imperative for government to synergize with individuals in the private sector to bring development into the state.
“All the years, physical planning and implementation of plans in this country have been left in the hands of successive governments, coupled with total loss of political will to plan, and lack of proper awareness of the public on the gains of physical planning have left a yawning gap between urbanization and committed efforts to arrest its challenges.
“Involvement of the private sector and collaboration among stakeholders in the practice of the physical planning will inject new impetus towards catching up with the demands of the livability of our settlements. This approach will undeniably, capture the whole essence of physical planning which is to create human settlements that are orderly, functionally efficient, economically viable and esthetically pleasant for living, working recreating and circulation.
“It will also lay credence to the necessity of a comprehensive approach to tackling the challenges of physical planning development in the state and perhaps in the country as a whole.”
In an interview the chairman Local Organizing Committee, Elder Nelson Nwaosu said that the choice for the theme “Consequences of planlessness in our cities” was to “beam our searchlight on the implications of absence of not having planned cities and its resultant effects on economic and physical development.”
The LOC chairman said that in line with the vision of NITP, “we remain committed to our vision, which is provide aesthetically pleasing and very functional cities, as to create employment, draw investors that will usher in improved economic status of the state in particular and the country in general.”
Earlier in an address, NITP Abia State chapter chairman Mr. Lekwa Ezutah listed four cardinal functions of town planners as people trained to arbitrate between activities and space, deal with the physical layout of communities; make proposals and initiate policies designed to make life comfortable, enjoyable and profitable, project future space needs and accommodate them to ensure the environment created today will meet the demands of tomorrow and people that places public interest over individual interest with respect to location of various land uses.
Ezutah however expressed hope that the luncheon would provide the needed platform for planning professionals to brain storm and interact well on how to develop a planned physical environment and also to see the need to protect same.
In a unanimous resolution at the end of the event, they agreed as thus; that the city of Aba can be improved to its former glory that will attract investors, be security friendly and as such, orderly planned if all the stakeholders join hands with government and town planners to make it achievable.
It was also agreed that master plan is the pre-requisite of orderly development of major towns in the world; Aba in Abia State inclusive, adding that the old master plan by the colonial masters is no longer dependable because it has been overtaken by the present population.
According to them, the old Aba master plan cannot cope with the population which has been swallowed by the number of people that settled in Aba and as a result overstretches social amenities.
“We are asking and requesting for completely fresh and new Aba master plan that will take recognizance of the present population of Aba as to provide the required facilities.
“When the master plan is operational, we will upgrade some the areas that presently exist without adequate access road and facilities. So that they will be upgraded and of course those that cannot be upgraded completely can now be relocated to a more appropriate place.
“It is presently being done in Abuja today whose suburbs were not completely planned before people overwhelmly entered to settle their. So what FCDA are doing today is to upgrade, that is what we may do to those areas that are presently built without proper plan.
“We are not going to embark on the demolition of peoples’ houses because they built ignorantly, we are rather going to upgrade; upgrading means, if you don’t have access road around your area, access road will be provided for to the best of the ability of the environment,” a spokesman of the group stated.
