The Nigerian Institute of Town Planners, NITP, has clarified that a city’s master plan is not a one-off document but a continuous review of town planning to respond to changes for expansion, either due to economic development or social needs of society.
The Institute warned that stifling city expansion or development plans is what leads to urban slums, emphasizing also that fraudulent practices in human activities is what leads to flooding of the environment due to improper planning.
National President of, NITP, Tpl. Nathaniel Atebije made the disclosures in an international press conference to mark the institute’s 55th Annual General meeting, taking place in the coal city of Enugu state.
In his eighth press conference, titled “Of Fraud and Flood,” the NIPT president noted that the most devastating fraud taking place in Nigeria today is environmental fraud which he described as the illegal manipulation or misrepresentation of ecological data, activities, or conditions for financial gain or to avoid regulatory compliance; such as falsifying environmental impact assessments, concealing pollution, engaging in illegal waste disposal, or misreporting emissions levels.
Atebije stated that lack of physical planning or poorly regulated urbanization is the fundamental environmental fraud in Nigeria, stressing that flood comes as a result of lack of planning which he linked to disasters that occur as a result of failure in either obeying natural laws or the loss of physical development.
“We are saying that people should plan because when you plan you would be able to avert disasters. That is the nexus between flood and planning. When you refuse to plan your physical environment, definitely it will be disorganized and like we say in elemental science, water finds its level. If you don’t direct it, it will find its way where you don’t expect. So we advise people to plan. If you have money and you are going to develop, the first thing you must do is to plan your environment because the profit, the convenience, the beauty, the functionality that you expect to get from that environment is where it’s located, how it’s located and how it’s organized.”
Answering questions on at what time development goes beyond a master plan, Atebije said, “Planning as we always say is a continuous process because the tastes of people change, the economy of people change, their purchasing power continues to change for the better. And so if you were in a small place before, you want a larger space either for social reasons, for family reasons or for whatever other reason you want a bigger space and cities continue to increase. Now, as cities continue to increase in size because of investments, so also is the cost of dynamism of the growth will always give room to ensure that there is provision for monitoring.
“When you monitor, you evaluate, then you look at your former strategies, which are the areas you need to amend and we review our plan. So master plan is not a-one-off activity and when it’s taken as a-one-off activity- that is what gives room to urban slums- when the city is not allowed to grow by plan it goes into slum development. So what I’m saying is that planning is a continuous process, a master plan is not a-one-off assignment, it’s something you continue to review and make responsive changes in terms of economy, population.”
