A Professor of Urban and Regional Planning in the University of Ibadan, Professor Bolanle Waheed Wahab, has stressed the need for the indigenisation of the planning and management of human settlements through greater utilisation of indigenous techniques, personnel, and approaches.
Professor Wahab gave the advice in a lecture entitled “Informal Communities and Planned Slums: The Tragedy of Environmental Planning Without Indigenous Knowledge Systems.”
It was the 522nd Inaugural lecture of the University of Ibadan delivered on behalf of the Faculty of Environmental Design and Management.
According to the professor, these would increase the level of participation of stakeholders who are beneficiaries of the planning policies and products to increase the liveability index of communities and reduce dependency.
He stated that the Nigerian rural and urban communities have enormous resources waiting to be tapped for development purposes if approached in ways that demonstrate mutual respect, transparency, and accountability between government agencies and the communities.
Professor Wahab lamented the situation in Nigeria where policy and decision makers ignore community, local, and indigenous knowledge systems, which they ignorantly equate with retrogressive ideology, old fashioned and of no positive consequence.
He stated that the tradition-inclusive governance systems that sustained the communities for centuries are viewed as slow, time wasting, unscientific, and are therefore, discarded and jettisoned without the least consideration until when there are crises and insecurity problems and traditional rulers and apparatuses are invited for a rescue.
Given the opportunities and challenges that informal settlements offer urban and peri- urban populations, Professor Wahab advised that governments, development agencies, scholars, and professionals should come together and formulate actionable strategies to transform ailing informal and formal settlements into liveable communities.
He also advised that improvements in the quality of the urban environments, through community-based and participatory waste management, water supply, road improvement, public sanitation, and neighbourhood revitalisation, should be the utmost priority of government.
He said that the government should collaborate with both the private and popular sectors to champion the enactment and enforcement of appropriate laws and bye-laws for proper planning and management of the living environment.
The Professor of Urban and Regional Planning advised that the need to re-shape our physical surroundings to better our lives should be seen as a basic human activity by all stakeholders in a collective, collaborative, and sustainable manner.
