Friday, February 20, 2009 Sunday Guardian
Expert canvasses support for Lagos mega-city project
By David Ibemere
THE current efforts by the Lagos State government to transform Lagos to a true mega-city, which involves re-planning, decongesting and cleaning up the environment deserves support, as it must also be understood that the present problems have accumulated over the decades.
Delivering a lecture entitled: 'Lagos As a Mega-city', in Ikorodu on Wednesday, transportation expert, Prof. Isaac Ayinde Adalem also said serious thought should be given to those that are already displaced by the unbridled influx of people into Lagos state.
In his words, "For Lagos to attain the status of a mega-city, there should be redistribution of employment opportunities, provision of adequate transportation facilities, improving infrastructure facilities for the supply of power and energy, ensuring housing availability through mass estate development, urban renewal, slum upgrading and encouraging the participation of the private sector.
"There should also be tactful waste management, strengthening capacity and capabilities of the police and other security agencies, and also improving the quality of urban environment."
Adalemo noted that one of the problems retarding the transformation of Lagos State is the un-identification of the territorial limits of her area.
He also pointed out that massive influx of people to urban areas in search of better means of livelihood resulted to high rate of unemployment, and under-employment, insufficient housing and shelter, thus causing the emergence of slums.
"Power supply, overloaded and congested transport system, air, water, flood and noise pollution, budget crises, raise in crime and other malaise we be inherent", he continued
Adelemo further stated that the unemployed or underemployed constitute a ready pool of personnel for recruitment by crime barons, thus heightening security problem.
"Another problem facing Lagos in quest of becoming a mega city is lack of effective mass transit facilities and over-reliance on road transport, resulting to traffic congestion, delays, health sapping, and for these problems to be solve, there should be two-fold transport system," he said.
Adalemo maintained that local council administration is the bedrock of sustainable national development, as it would ensure effective participation of all citizens in activities that would promote development at all levels.
He further asserted that at the national level, development planning must address the issue of urban bias through the promotion of decentralization and also a national human settlement policy supportive of decentralization spatial development must be formulated and implemented
" For the big cities to be decongested, the small and medium-sized cities should be developed and there should be provision of facilities and services should be made accessible as long as these root causes are not addressed, the challenges facing mega-city administration will continue to mount and defy solution," he reaffirmed.
Adelemo also stated, "Management of large system requires same level of technology and resource management. Unless we attain that level of technology and resource management capacity and capabilities, allowing our cities to grow, uncontrolled to enormous sizes will continue to present us with insurmountable problems and any attempt to solve them could be very expensive and may result in waste of valuable resources as we are currently experiencing in Nigeria."
"Speaking to The Guardian, Adelemo acknowledged that the cause of the state of Lagos presently was due to the past neglect and poor planning of how we organize space for development causing bottlenecks congestion in our roads and loss of huge amount that could be channeled for development."
