The Nigerian Institute of Town Planners (NITP), an association of professionals in the Urban and Regional Planning sector in Nigeria, will be holding their 2021 Conferences by October in the garden city of Port Harcourt.
Speaking during an exclusive interview at the studio with African Housing News correspondent, the Chairman of the Conference planning committee, Tpl. Nathaniel Atibije, who disclosed that the conference will be taking place at BON Hotels in Port Harcourt, Rivers State from 25th to 29th of October, 2021, hinted that the theme for the conference will focus on Building Nigerian Cities for Resilience and Sustainability, which according to Atibije, will be the institute’s response to the way and manner at which Nigerian settlements were developed, which have currently exposed them to a lot of stress and shocks like flooding, desertification and quite a lot of issues associated with climate change.
The Conference planning committee Chairman who went further to emphasize that the current crises of Insecurity experience in the country is also factored into the problems of inappropriate planning, and advised that we have to look and rethink our cities again, re-conceptualize to make sure that whenever there are shocks or stresses, we should be able to accommodate them, mitigate them, bounce back and build better; hence, the importance of the conference.
Tpl. Atibije, who was the first National Vice President of the Institute, a fellow of the Institute and a Town Planning Consultant, noted that attendance at the conference is not just restricted to members, but all and lovers of the environment across the world, and also highlighted that the four days conference will involve, various meetings with groups, professionals, experts, stakeholders, etc Lead paper presentation on the issues of the conference, panel discussions and academic paper presentation on related disciplines, interactions with their foreign partners from the United Kingdom, Indonesia, Netherlands, colleagues from Ghana, etc, and will also witness the presence of dignitaries including the the host Governor, Governor Nyesom Wike, of Rivers State, Ministers, Top Government functionaries, etc.
