Challenges of Urban poor to accessing social amenities in FCT

Population increases in the FCT, Abuja have fuelled the growth of overcrowded and insanitary living conditions for many poor people. Much environmental degradation is both caused by overcrowded living conditions, and at the same time is a symptom of the failure of city managers to provide essential services and allocate land for housing development in these areas. The overall challenge has been for policy makers to create the conditions within which poor people can have the space and opportunity to maximise the benefits that urbanisation presents, and to reduce the conditions which impede that process.
Towns and cities are well placed to provide access to a wide range of services at a relatively low cost. This means that poor people should benefit from improved health care, better education opportunities, and a wide range of services and products which support different labour markets. Unfortunately, for many poor urban people, in the FCT, this is not the case. Many are socially excluded on the grounds of cost, discriminatory administrative and legal practices; and through failures of the political process and the efforts of urban managers and social programmes to keep pace with the growth of settlements on the urban fringe where many poor residents live. Many non-recognised slums for instance, even in city centres, are not considered to be part of the city, and therefore receive no civic amenities or legal protection.

In the area of public and private services provision to mitigate the environmentalT effects of the conditions within which they live – accumulations of solid waste, human excrement, polluted water sources, high levels of indoor air pollution, security of tenure and lack of access to housing, the lack of access to basic utilities forces the poor to pay many more times the unit cost of some utilities like water and energy than the rich do. To cite just few communities facing this kind of problems in the FCT are: Lugbe, Karmo, Chika, Karu, Tudun Wada, Gosa, Sauka, Jiwa, Mpape among the numerous communities in the city.

In this context, the challenge is to ensure that poor people are able to participate in and benefit from the process of urban development. In the first instance, the urban poor need somewhere secure and healthy to live and they need to have access to a broad range of essential services. Alongside this, policy makers must support the development of social, political and legal structures which are inclusive and provide opportunities for all people, including the poor and disadvantaged, to obtain the services they want and need, and to participate actively in development and political processes.

In recognition of this huge gap that existed between the rich, poor, leaders and the led and to ensure sustainable human settlement development in Nigeria and beyond a coordinated effort by all stakeholders especially the poor themselves creating a platform where they can discuss and put their issues in to perspectives for action to improve their living condition is now.

Desmond Chieshe
Programme Officer Human Settlement
Women Environmental Programme (WEP)
Abuja, Nigeria

Urban Poor and the challenges of access to Land in the Federal Capital Territory, Abuja

One major socio-political issue in Nigeria today particularly in the FCT is access to land, whereas access to land is critical to development and fundamental to shelter and other uses like Agriculture. The FCT has attracted a great number of migrants from other parts of the country which has resulted in increased pressure on land and infrastructures creating social and political problems like congestion and poor housing conditions, poor hygiene and health facilities and low level environmental sanitation.

The indigenous people are daily faced with relocation threats in which they lose their ancestral homelands to “development’’ with the little compensation offered brining only a short lived satisfaction. Oftentimes the compensation hardly reaches all persons affected Government in time past established Policies which failed to meet the needs of the poor because they were characterized by lack of adequate capacity, poor planning, high cost land, slow land release process and corruption. Another major setback has been the Land Use Act (LUA) 1978 which nationalizes and vests ownership of land within the territory of each state in the Governor (in the case of FCT the Minister) for the use and common benefits of every Nigerian further heightened insecurity of tenure and access to land. The widening income gaps and escalating land prices and formal land development processes tend to serve only those who can afford, excluding the poor in the formal land market.

The aim of the Land Use Act was to deal with problem of uncontrolled speculations in urban lands, make land easily access to every Nigerian irrespective of gender, unify tenure system in the country ensure equity and justice in land allocation and distribution and amongst others, prevent fragmentation of rural lands arising from the application of the traditional principle of inheritance. In spite of all these effort cost and processes involved in accessing land is deterrent especially for the poor therefore creating way Government and the rich only acquiring land for their use while the poor are alienated.

People can no longer go back home to ancestral land bestowed on them by their forefathers to farm or use for other purposes because Government now has ownership of such land. Of most concern to is the demolition of structures built by the people of informal settlements in the FCT and other part of Nigeria in the name of development or beautification despite policy commitment by Nigerian Government to Housing delivery. Government fails to recognize that informal settlements came about as a result of unequal access to land, housing & economic opportunities thereby inflicting untold hardships on majority of her citizenry.

It is time for all stakeholders to rise up and intensify effort towards providing the enabling environment for poor peoples’ access to land and security tenure.
It is our collective responsibility to make cities work for the poor and the formal land delivery systems are increasingly alienating the poor from seeking access to land and as such what can we do to remove all the impediments in the current systems of land supply?

Desmond Chieshe
Abuja, Nigeria