ADEQUATE URBAN PLANNING KEY TO SOLVING INSECURITY AND OTHER CHALLENGES 03-11-22
By Sadiq Aminu The House of Representatives Committee on Urban and Regional Planning, has stressed the need for adequate planning of urban cities, saying doing so will help address insecurity and other challenges.
The Chairman of the committee Mr Awaji-Inombek Abiante, who made the remark, lamented however the practice of breaching original plans of many urban cities.
“If our cities are properly developed, well planned, issues of disasters, issues of emergencies would be reduced. Issues of identifications would be improved because persons can be tracked to the very last location that they are. But what we find, what we have are cities lacking the very basic, relative planning for development.
“In areas where there have been seeming semblance of planning, development have not been according to plans. Areas where development have even reached, there have been cases of several distortions. There have been cases of conversions. Areas are designated as residential, people convert them to be commercial or even industrial. It negates, and would continue to negate the essence of planning and urban development.
According to the lawmaker, slums have continued to spring up because of the challenges, stressing the need to support government, to see how these can be redeveloped and upgraded beyond slums.
Abiante added that the committee would continue to liaise with various agencies, ministries and departments of government to achieve the desired results.