Physical planning in a democratic setting: Public expectations and challenges for professional practitioners

THIS paper examines physical planning in Nigeria in a democratic setting with focus on public expectations and challenges for practitioners.

It navigates through the evolution and operation of physical planning under both autocratic and democratic dispensation to achieve the set objective.

Our settlements are confronted with myriads of problems that require rapid response than hitherto. Using a desk top study approach, the paper distills the various opportunities and challenges presented during different governance dispensations.

From backdrop of dividends of democracy, the paper argues that the citizenry places greater expectations on planning and delivery of quality living.

It hypothesizes possible challenges to be borne by professional planners and generates appropriate recommendations within the confine of the interplay of politics and planning.

INTRODUCTION
The world we live is rapidly urbanizing as noted by UN-Habitat (2010) more people will live in urban than rural settlements. The implication of this is that urban settlements will continue to expand, witness more growth and development across all sectors with all attendant externalities such as, sprawl development, pressured urban infrastructure, environmental degradation and disaster. It has been argued that this is more likely in developing countries through with a fair share in developed countries.

The other side of the coin is that the rural areas are not left out of this, as they become depopulated, lose productive human resources. And as a result of the need to address issues in urban areas it becomes neglected and forgotten. Hence, the lack of basic infrastructures, poor economic base, de-motivated population, all these account for the prevalence of poverty in the different rural settlements.

From the perspective of settlements as system, a network of interwoven components, the urban and rural cannot be seen in isolation, their activities impact positively and negatively on one another. The imperative is to devise a platform to address the challenges posed in the urban and rural areas and this falls within the ambit of physical planning which could be administered under different systems of government albeit autocracy or democracy, conferring different opportunities and challenges.

Physical planning as a reconciliatory act is an attempt to coordinate, harness, settlements potentials and mediates between the conflicting interest of the public and market forces in other to achieve a ‘harmonious’ settlement (Oduwaye, 2015).

Hence, physical planning provides a veritable platform to achieve a sustainable physical, social and economic national development which cut across both the rural and urban areas.

In Nigeria, physical planning pre-dates colonial rule, dating back to traditional settlement planning based on the local customs and practices, irrespective of this, the practice of physical planning in Nigeria has not been without its challenges, due to its operation under different administration. Some of these challenges stem from the interplay between politics and planning and these among others have formed a defining point for physical planning in Nigeria.

Over the years urban planning have thrived under different governance structure: autocracy and democracy. In concept, democracy is a governance structure embracing a political system ruled by the people, either directly or through elected representatives. It promotes the doctrine that the numerical majority of an organized group can make decisions binding on the whole group. A state under the direct or representative rule of its people is presumed democratic.

Therefore, the expectation of the people under such a dispensation becomes so high that it may to some extent be unattainable. This basically could be adduced to challenges that might be beyond the control of the professionals.

The paper is divided into six sections including the introductory. The second section discusses physical planning in Nigeria within the context of its evolution and operation under both autocratic and democratic dispensation with emphasis on the latter. The various opportunities and challenges presented during different governance dispensation were distilled in the third section. Public expectation (dividend of democracy) and the place of planning on the delivery of public good constitute the fourth section. Possible challenges to be borne by professional planners were focused in the fifth section. And in the last section, the paper concludes with appropriate recommendations as road map.

Physical Planning in Nigeria
This section discusses physical planning in Nigeria within the context of its evolution and operation under both autocratic and democratic dispensation with emphasis on the latter. We learn from literature that modern physical planning has its root in European countries and this idea came as a response to the effects of industrialization and urban growth in early nineteenth century. However, it should be noted that Nigeria in particular has some form of process of settlement planning through traditional customs and practices before the incursion of the British.

Broadly, the evolution, development and trend of physical planning in Nigeria, could be categorized into three main era, these are pre-colonial (pre 1863), colonial (1863-1960) and post colonial (1960 to date). The act of physical ordering of uses to which lands are put to in Nigeria pre-dates colonial rule. This could be traced to the Nigerian traditional settlement arrangement based on local customs and practice, traditional land ownership. In this arrangement communal land were entrusted in the traditional chiefs.

Formal physical planning is traced to the promulgation of 1863 Town Improvement Ordinance in Lagos basically to control development and ensure improved urban sanitation. However, in actual sense, the real attempt at physical planning in Nigeria could be largely traced to the Town Improvement Ordinance of 1917 and 1946 Nigeria Town and Country Planning Ordinance. Town improvement Ordinance of 1917 categorized Nigeria settlements into first, second and third class. This law according to NITP (1991) constituted the ‘first attempt at introducing spatial orderliness in the land use pattern of Nigerian cities.

Onokerhoraye (206) opined that an important note in the law was the emphasis on guidelines for the physical layouts of towns and cities, this cut across both the native and European reservations. There was also the 1928 law that established the Lagos Executive Development Board (LEDB) as a response to the outbreak of bubonic plaque in the city. It was saddled with the re-planning, improvement and development of Lagos. The Nigeria Town and Country Planning Ordinance of 1946 was fashioned after the United Kingdom Town and Country Planning Act of 1932.

The law was promulgated “for re-planning, improvement and development of different parts of Nigeria, the law created planning authorities and made provision for the preparation of planning schemes. Indeed, the 1947 law, forms the bedrock of subsequent planning Law No. 88 of 1992: which introduced the ideal of appropriating different level of physical planning task to the three tiers of government, the laws specified that the Federal State and Local Government has the statutory responsibility to formulate development plans from national to local plans, also the law created physical planning bodies at the three tiers of government, Commission at Federal, Board at State and Authority at the local level.

Urban and Regional Planning Under the Regional Governance: 1960-1966
The focus of development in the country under this democratic setting simply was sectoral and economic planning rather than conscious efforts aimed at resolving physical planning challenges. Hence the first two National Development Plans (NDP) followed the pre independence pattern. In object, the first plan was to accelerate economic growth to the detriment of the structural problems witnessed in the pre independence era.

During this period, trained town planners were attracted, town planning units were established (Obialo, 1999). These planning units later became departments in the Regional ministries of Lands and Survey. The planning departments became the policy making organs for planning and preparing master plan for some areas. In the face of urbanization, the regional governments could not adequately give urban and regional planning the priority it demanded.

The non existence of physical planning administration at the national level made it difficult to initiate planning proposals that cut across regional boundaries. The implementation of the Town and Country Planning Ordinance of 1946 created a situation in which planning and development of an urban area was equated to provision of more physical attractive layout and well designed housing estates.
Urban and Regional Planning in the Second Republic: 1979-1983

The fourth NDP shared similarity with the third NDP. However, the plan specified clearly the objective of urban and regional planning by defining the role of physical planning as a tool for achieving national development objectives and some policy measures that were of planning interest (Adebayo, 1885). The IDF was created in 1985 for the purpose of financing urban development projects, in addition to agriculture, manufacturing, housing, water supply and environmental sanitation. At the state level, State Housing Corporation and Town Planning Authority came alive and the latter was empowered to undertake long term urban development programmes through the preparation of master plan for some cities.

Due to military intervention, this play did not run its full course. With respect to urban and regional development, the implementation of the plan did little to develop Nigeria and the regions as notable challenges persisted including environmental decay, inadequate and poor basic infrastructure, in-effective legal and institutional framework for planning and inadequate human capital base for urban planning across the country. (Olomojeye, 1999, Adebayo, 1999, Oyesiku, 1998, 2010).

TO BE Continued