Naomi Gabriel —
The President of the Nigerian Institute of Town Planners (NITP), Olutoyin Ayinde in the nation’s capital, Abuja urged the federal and state governments to commence the implementation of national urban and regional planning law.
The president of the institute while charging the government to be alive to its responsibility also encouraged professional town planners to make available acquired knowledge in both art and science for the government to develop into a workable blue print.
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Ayinde, also added that the framework at the federal level hasn’t been implemented and stressed that it will require every state to domesticate the legislation towards enhancing physical planning in the country.
He said that Nigerians were under-informed on matters relating town, urban, or regional planning due to the fact that the federal government has not paid proper attention to it.
“Many times the emphasis has been on economic planning. The national urban and regional legislation was promulgated as a decree in 1992, and became law in 2004, he said.
“It prescribes the various hierarchies of plans meant to be prepared at federal, state and local levels, to ensure the success of its implementation. Countries like Singapore and others have shown that limited land resources can be efficiently managed for livability and sustainability”.
“The incidence of farmers-herders clash, which underscores the importance of land in economic and physical development had never existed when our population was low”, he concluded.
