‘Urban development must be inclusive, people-driven’

Deji Akinpelu is the co-founder of Rethinking Cities, an advocacy group on urban and development issues. In this exclusive interview with INIOBONG IWOK, he blamed the continued encroachment of wetlands for the incessant flooding across the country. He also spoke on other issues. Excerpts:

What is the aim of setting up of the Rethinking Cities?

Rethinking Cities is an NGO. It all began from my photography work, as a documentary photographer, having photographed Lagos during several works.

In areas around urban issues, wastes and housing; the plight of the urban poor became something I see more in my body of works and I have done this for some time. So, having done this beyond capturing these elements in pictures and videos; it became imperative that I thought to myself why don’t you form an organisation that people can come together?

So, I decided that it would be an inter-disciplinary organisation; people in art and urban planning would come together and begin to advocate for solutions.

So, beyond taking pictures and documenting, advocating became very important. Not just seeing problems around and documenting, but proffering solutions; this gave birth to the organisation.

So, we can say Rethinking Cities is a multi-disciplinary advocacy group, where entertainers, researchers, photographers come together and begin to look at issues about urbanisation. We work and listen to researchers and do creative content and some of the solutions that have been suggested.

We equally work with innovators. Some are not only on the ideas stage, but they are already being implemented into solution to solve urban problems. We work together to see how the role of advocacy in making the work easy. For example, we have innovators like ‘AWA’ bike, it is a bicycle sharing platform created by a couple of young people.

So, looking at such innovators, what kind of laws can be put in place to accelerate such ideas?

For example, a city like Lagos we have to look how we can reduce the number of people using cars.

It is not enough to put BRT on the road, what happens after they get out of the BRT bus? It is something you have to think through and make it convenient and healthy for people to be able to go through that process.

Lagos State is being remoulded into a mega city, are you satisfied with the method that is being adopted?

Lagos is a mega city by the virtue of its population; as long as a city is more than ten million people, that city is called a mega city. That is one clarification I need to make. What the government is trying to do is to say; we are building a city befitting of a mega city, whereby there is a whole lot of infrastructural development which is bad.

Development and modernity in a society is what we are contending with now. When you have lot of people and you have limited resources, that is where the issue lies; how do you use this limited resources, to satisfy who? Is like you are taking the little resources to satisfy the few; the government is engaging in a contract with developers to build Eko Atlantic for 150,000 residents, that is very easy but in providing same housing they would rather forcefully evict 30,000 people living in Olubirin in Otabagbame.

The challenge is that development is not people-oriented. What we are saying is that; we are going to build this city modernise it, and if you can’t afford it you can leave it. But we are saying that;  development must be inclusive. Take for example; the case of Alade market in the master plan of Ikeja, a shopping mall, was proposed around that area.

This is against the market that has existed for many years; before we build anywhere it must be inclusive. What is being pictured here is that, let us build a city like Dubai, but what we are saying is that; build a city that is organic and true to our culture and heritage.

You can build a modern traditional market not a mall; which means designing a modern traditional market that looks African, neat and organise.

So the challenge is that, the government is talking about developing and modernising the city at the expense of the urban poor, which is the challenge. The mega city project they are embarking upon is not inclusive.

Often in Lagos State, mechanics are being chased out of their work places without provision, there is need for social housing fund in Lagos State. There is the need for you to look at the slum areas and work with the people.

The Governor of Lagos State during campaigns mentioned the issue of Badia, he talked about the challenges in the area; that is a clear case of an area that needs government attention and we need to find a solution.

How bad is encroachment of wetland in Lagos State?

It is a big issue; if you do an Aerial view of land in Lagos State, or take a flight you would see that the green of Lagos is reducing. Presently, as we speak the wetland just after the third mainland bridge in Oworoshoki is being sand-filed. Which is because man is now looking for more space to build houses for people, we are encroaching on them.

But these wetlands are for a purpose; they are supposed to be water holding areas. It is because of these encroachments we are having flooding in Lagos State.

People are complaining that they bought houses and they are flooded during rainy season, it is because they were built on wetland that needed to be preserved. Our greed is also our plight. What we are saying is that government agencies should protect wetland; but they are the one giving building permit on wetlands and estates are being built on them.

I know an estate where people are building on wetland; so what we are saying is that there is supposed to be wetland protection policy.

Look at the Lekki protection foundation, that is a preserved conservation that has been preserved, imagine if it was not preserved. We need more of such areas. When this is done, flood water does not have where to flow to, when it rains there are places water should go, but they have built on them.

Take for example; the Ilubirin housing estate project and its impact on Adeniji Adele estate; they are sand-filling somewhere but when the water wants to flow, it flows back there, the entire Adeniji Adele is flooded now.

There is the belief that Lagos has made significant progress in protecting the environment and beautifying it; it could be worse elsewhere?

Yes, it could be worse. Lagos in its development plan for now should not just plan for itself, it supposed to be regional approach. The success of Lagos development is important for the success of other states.

The planning supposed to be regional in terms of approach; that is why you have Development Agency for Western Nigeria. The governors of Western Nigeria come together to discuss issues of common interest. Yes, I agree but talking about what Lagos needs to do and where it is lagging behind, Lagos has not demonstrated enough in terms of its spending on drainage, creation and protection of drainage in and across the state.

If you check the budgetary allocation, the amount that has been spent over the last five years, you would see that Lagos has been able to spend like N500million on drainage in the last five years, against what is required of about N20 billion annually. So, we have to stay on the drainage master plan.

How do you operate; do you have volunteers apart from professionals that work with you?

Rethinking Cities would be a year old in December, although I have been working personally, there is something we call photographers for change.

I mean, it was just photographers coming together to do the work and the money they make were used to solve societal problems. So, firstly it was photographers for change so now metamorphosed into Rethinking Cities; now we have a work force.

But everyday online people are always asking; how can I be part of this? Surely, by next year we are going to open up for voluntarism because we are getting more and more of such requests; so, that they can sign up and engage with us with some of our programmes. It is actually an advocacy group, an NGO; we get support from individuals and donor organisations.