FG’s urban development agenda raises hope for slum dwellers

The Federal Government’s urban and regional development agenda has raised hope for Nigerians who live in what has been described as urban slums as the development agenda also targets upgrading of slums.

The development agenda also involves the articulation of national physical plan and the development of urban and housing indicators.

Africa and, indeed, Nigeria is experiencing fastpaced urbanisation and contrary to what obtains in advanced societies where urbanisation and increasing population in the cities translate into economic assets, such developments are rather liabilities in Africa.

UN-HABITAT, the United Nations agency responsible for human settlement, notes that most African cities are largely unplanned cities, estimating that 60 percent of the urban city dwellers in Africa live in slums.

Lagos, Nigeria’s largest commercial city, has nine identified slum areas including Badia, Amukoko, Ajegunle, Okokomaiko, among others, and over 70 percent of the city’s 18 million people live in these slum areas.

Abuja, the federal capital city, also has a number of growing slum areas like Kuje, Kubwa, Nyanya and others.

It is against this backdrop that the government’s development agenda also incorporates the development of a comprehensive Road Map on Housing and Urban Development and an Infrastructure Master Plan with a strong component of housing, urban and regional development.

Akon Eyakenyi, the minister of lands, housing and urban development, who gave this hint at a forum in Abuja recently, said government hoped that this initiative would significantly boost current effort at making the cities safer, more productive, inclusive, gender sensitive and environmentally friendly.

“This has to do with the provision of essential infrastructural facilities and services such as potable water, roads, drains, and electricity in identified slum areas where comprehensive needs-assessment survey has been conducted”, she said, pointing out, however, that drains, roads, water, and electricity had been provided as pilot schemes to improve the well being and living conditions of slum dwellers in Kano State and Port Harcourt in Rivers State.

“It is hoped that the positive socio-economic impact of these projects will encourage state governments to replicate same. In addition, comprehensive programmes on slum upgrade in the six geo-political zones of the country have been undertaken in Lagos, Onitsha, Aba, Osogbo etc”, she said.

The minister informed that government’s efforts at providing housing for the entire citizens at affordable cost led to the launching f Cooperative Mortgage Scheme for Nigerians in the informal sector of the economy who had been hitherto denied the opportunity of accessing housing finance through the National Housing Fund (NHF) scheme.

This initiative, she enthused, has recorded appreciable success, explaining that from 935 registered cooperative societies comprising 18,397 members from the informal sector of the Nigerian economy, the Federal Mortgage Bank of Nigeria (FMBN), which manages the NHF scheme, has collected N133.70 million as contribution to the national scheme between December 2011, when the cooperative scheme was launched, and March 2014.