NFRASTRUCTURE RENEWAL PROGRAMS: A REMEDY TO LAGOS MEGACITY CHALLENGES

NFRASTRUCTURE RENEWAL PROGRAMS: A REMEDY TO LAGOS MEGACITY CHALLENGES

CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION
1.1   BACKGROUND TO THE STUDY
The population of Lagos is at present in excess of 18 million. A megacity status is conferred by the United Nations on cities with a population of 10 million and above. Building and preserving a model mega city comes with great challenges. Providing a sufficient amount of infrastructure and other necessities that would accommodate the needs of over 18 million people could be daunting (Ayeni, 2008).

By 2025, officials and population analysts agreed that the number of people in the city and in the surrounding communities, especially, in Ogun State axis, would leap to 30 million. Prominent among the challenges are housing, infrastructure and transportation, particularly in more than 10 local government areas (LGAs) that made up of the state, excluding local council development areas (LCDAs). Besides, the notorious traffic jams, choking pollution, inadequate supply of potable water, insecurity and absence or inadequate social and economic needs of the people pose more challenges. Apart from series of efforts put in place by government through several urban renewal programs, the uncontrolled influx of people from virtually every states of Nigeria, including neighboring countries, such as Benin Republic, Togo, Ghana and others, is heightening the fear that the next few years would provoke a daunting task for the authority (Tim, 2003).
It has been observed that in some houses in Lagos metropolis, septics are channeled directly into the drain. The government is, therefore, challenged to invest heavily in the protection of the environment through urban renewal programs in order to avert environmental abuse and its consequences. People migrate from villages to the city-centre, without adequate understanding of reality on ground. Here, culture comes into play, such as open defecation as being done in the village, spreading of clothes publicly and cooking exercise in any open place, among others which is frustrating the efforts of the state government at transforming the city through urban renewal programs. Official admitted that planned urban renewal is a major challenge in an emerging model city like Lagos (Batley, 2003). Prior to the current urban regeneration efforts by the government, Lagos used to be referred to as a jungle of various emerging slums. However, a systematic urban development and slum renewal programme, in partnership with several development agencies, has since been put in place to reverse the trend being a major remedy to combat the menace characterized by urbanization. Consequently, various model city plans that included Ikeja Model Plan, Victoria Island/Ikoyi Model City Plan, Lekki Comprehensive Land Use and Infrastructure Master Plan have been completed while Mainland Central Model City Plan Badagry Draft Master Plan and Alimosho Master Plan have been concluded, while others are at various stages of execution. However, in order to give the urban renewal programme a legal backing, the Lagos State Model City Development Law was enacted in 2009 while the State Urban and Regional Planning Law were signed on July 7, 2010.