By : Ogine Victor
Efforts are currently ongoing to rally stakeholders to envision a blueprint of the type of Lagos State they want to see in the next 25 years. This is coming as a result of the influx of people migrating to Nigeria’s commercial capital; seeking opportunities to better their future.
To this end, the concern of Lagos in the next nearest future dominated discussion at the 12th edition of the Lagos Architects Forum (LAF 12.0) with the theme: “The City of Lagos in the next 25 Years”.
Mr. Toyin Ayinde, President of the Nigerian Institute of Town Planners (NITP) and former Lagos State Commissioner for Urban Development and Physical Planning in his keynote address appealed to Stakeholders in the built environment to come together to discuss the future of the city of Lagos, as well as many other cities and communities in the country.
Ayinde, who pointed out that the city of Lagos would be playing host to 40,000,000 (forty million) people or more in the next 25 years, suggested that stakeholders must start addressing pertinent questions like : on which land would those 40,000,000 people reside; where would they work; what sort of transportation systems would connect them; would every millimeter square be occupied with bungalows and low rise buildings or would we need to go high rise only, so that we can make more land available for landscaping and open spaces? What would be the cultural disposition to such phenomenal changes required to make the city functional?
His words, “What would happen to the city depends entirely on human decisions. Many people in whose hands the administration of the city lies, do not understand that the city is a living organism and that it has a soul (or core) from where various dynamics are generated.
“Despite the ominous signs, we can choose to look on the brighter side and seek a city better than we have ever known. That would depend on the decisions we make today and the plans we are willing to prepare, the resources we are willing to commit and the discipline of implementation we are ready to exercise,” – he said.
Governor of Lagos State, Babajide Sanwo-Olu in his keynote address, stated that since his assumption of his office, the government has made meaningful impact in ensuring that Lagos continues to remain a business ecofriendly environment by ensuring, among all others, that there is a reduced human interface in land transactions.
Governor Sanwo-Olu who was full of praise for the organizers of the Lagos Architects Forum, noted that his administration was working towards achieving the six pillars of growth embedded in the theme of the event.
On his part, Mr. Dipo Ajayi, president of the Architects Registration Council of Nigeria (ARCON), disclosed that the built environment has been heavily affected by the COVID -19 pandemic and that how best the profession is able to react and adjust to its realities should be the goal of the Forum because COVID- 19 phenomenon has come to stay and that they must chart a new direction on how they can carry out their businesses as architects.
David Majekodunmi, the Lagos chapter Chairman of the Nigerian Institute of Architects and host of LAF 12.0 was optimistic that at the end of the event, they would have succeeded in achieving their advocacy role of sensitising the various stakeholders in the built environment on steps and implementation strategies in achieving not just a megacity, but a sustainable, resilient, eco-friendly and livable megacity that is also an international cultural metropolis.
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