Poor physical planning encouraging environmental degradation, others – Don

By Nneka Nwogwugwu

The Dean of the Faculty of Environmental Sciences, University of Ilorin, Dr Abdulateef Bako, has noted that poor physical planning could encourage environmental degradation, slum, pollution, traffic congestion and flooding, among others.

According to the don, cities or countries that do not enjoy proper and sustainable physical planning are not likely to grow well.

Bako, also an Associate Professor in the Department of Urban and Regional Planning, in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria attributed the current security challenges in Nigeria to unmonitored development and outright absence of adequate physical planning of cities and towns.

According to him, more than 70 per cent of towns and cities in the country are neither well-planned nor have their master plans violated.

“Most of our cities and towns have been witnessing tremendous growth without following any sustainable plan.

“This situation has given rise to haphazard physical development and attendant security lapses.

“The negative effects of lack of adequate physical planning are many, intriguing and affecting the wellbeing of inhabitants of those places as well as the general peace and development of the entire country,” he said.

He said that the relative peace and sustainable growth being enjoyed by the advanced world were traceable to their purposive and time-tested physical planning regimes.

Bako said that if our cities and towns were well-planned, it would be very easy for security agencies to nip crimes and criminality in the bud.