Urban congestion, bane of healthy living, says AAU don

A professor of Urban Geography, in the Department of Geography and Environmental Management, Faculty of Environmental Studies, Ambrose Alli University, Ekpoma, Magnus Ojeifo, says that major cities in Nigeria are becoming too congested with attendant challenges, which do not allow for healthy living.

Ojeifo advocated the conceptualisation and development of a master plan to produce better and functional small towns in Nigeria.

He made the call in his presentation titled ‘Reinventing Urban Land Use Sustainability: Implications For Planning Small-Sized Towns in Nigeria’ at the university’s 107th Inaugural Lecture.

He said, “The problems of urbanization, which towns and cities in Nigeria are already contending with, are the unprecedented pressure on land, haphazard land use development, inadequate housing, waste management problems, unemployment and poor water and energy supply.

“Major cities in Nigeria are becoming too congested with attendant challenges, which did not allow for healthy living. The consequences have been the emergence of slums, traffic problems, insecurity, and incidences of disease outbreaks, pollution, flood and urban blight. Most cities and towns are not planned and the administration of land use is poor, hence physical development is amorphous.”

Ojeifo, whose treatise was the fifth from the Faculty of Environmental Studies and the fourth from the Department of Geography and Environment Management, added, “To further prevent the haphazard use of land in small towns, I call for comprehensive physical plan initiative that will not only address existing problems, but will promote urban functionality through establishing aesthetically pleasing and conducive environment for living.”

Declaring the 107th Inaugural Lecture open, the acting Vice Chancellor of AAU, Professor Asomwan Adagbonyin, said considering the pressure on our major cities and its attendant environmental challenges, the need to develop new small-sized towns as “we strive to live healthily, safely, conveniently, and efficiently in our different environments, cannot be over-emphasised.”

Calling on staff and students of the institution to sustain the current peace and tranquility, which form the bedrock of the various achievements recorded, the acting VC added, “The management reaffirms its undiluted commitment to an uninterrupted academic calendar and will continue to play its part of promptly paying salaries of deserving staff as well as pensions to our respected pensioners.

Highpoint of the event was the formal decoration of Ojeifo by the acting VC, an indication of his admittance into the prestigious class of academic titans.