African Urban Shift: Lagos, Maiduguri Part of 12 Cities Set for Major Changes
The Chief Executive Officer of the African Cities Research Consortium (ACRC), Prof. Diana Mitlin, has said that intractable development challenges in African cities are to be overcome for a sustainable neighbourhood and district economic development with infrastructural facilities.
According to her, the challenges comprise mobilisation of resources, political elites’ scepticism, and the economic hesitancy to work with informal settlements in the cities.
Mitlin unveiled the challenges on Tuesday at a news conference held at the Nigeria Union of Journalists (NUJ) press centre, Maiduguri.“Our research consortium, funded by the Foreign Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO), has targeted 13 African cities, including Lagos and Maiduguri, but Khartoum, in Sudan, was exempted due to the over two years of conflict.
Prof. Mitlin of the University of Manchester lamented political elites’ failure to meet the basic needs of people, stating, “They are to shift commitments to people’s needs in the informal settlement, land connectivity, and the structural transformation to improve their living conditions in cities.
Besides meeting vulnerable groups’ needs, she added that the cities’ challenges could be addressed through contiguous urban development, environmental regulations, and systematic land titling by the Borno State Information Service (BOGIS).“
About 66% of residents in the Maiduguri metropolis live in informal settlements without any land titles to ensure safety with a contiguous development of the metropolis,” she said.
Other challenges in African cities, particularly Maiduguri, included a fast-growing population, inadequate infrastructure and services, weak governance, and limited economic development across the targeted 12 cities.While sustaining the cities’ development projects, Prof. Ismail Ibraheem of the University of Lagos said,
“The media should hold the three arms of government accountable to the people.”He noted that the essence of government was to ensure the well-being of its citizens with the protection of their lives and property.Ibraheem noted that the over-a-decade Boko Haram insurgency and the recent floods in the state have exacerbated the long-standing concerns in Borno State.