URBAN AND REGIONAL PLANNING LAWS IN NIGERIA: A CASE STUDY OF LAGOS STATE FLOODING AND OVER POPULATION CHALLENGES, LEGISLATIVE REFORM INEVITABLE

Abstract

Urban planning has been described as a way, art or science of ensuring the orderliness and the utilization of land, how buildings sit on lands and a proper and adequate communication road and/or routes channels with a view to securing the maximum practicable degree of economy, convenience and beauty. In addition, urban planning is a means of anticipating change, and arbitrating between the economic, social political and physical forces that determine the location, form and effect of urban development; it is a deliberate step or action taken by the appropriate statutory public institution saddled with the responsibility of taking decisions or making arrangements ahead of time to influence the trajectory of action on a particular need. The principal objective and/or goal of urban, physical and regional planning is the enhancement of efficient functioning of metropolitan and rural systems with effective coordination of various land uses. Notwithstanding the number of efforts exerted by the relevant authorities to ensure efficient functioning of our townships, wrong planning and mismanagement of lands have resulted in building and lands collapsing. The paper examined the problems of urban and regional planning in Nigeria, with particular focus on Lagos State flooding and over population challenges. In examining this topical issue, the article beams its search light on the following research questions: why are urban cities wrongly planned by the Nigerian authorities, are their qualified regional and townships planners in Nigeria, why is Lagos state the most affected by environmental disaster and buildings collapses? To arrive at the desired answers and findings to the research questions posed above, the study adopted the doctrinal legal research method by consulting primary and secondary sources of information on urban and regional planning matters in Nigeria based on academic texts and peer reviewed journals. The relevant statutory provisions of both federal and Lagos state governments were also examined.