 Welcome once again to the breakfast here on PLOS TV Africa. Our next conversation, our first major conversation today, is going to be discussing urban development and fiscal planning here in Lagos. The challenges, what more needs to be done and where we currently are. We've been joined this morning in the studio by a former commissioner for fiscal planning and urban development here in Lagos. He's now the national president, Nigerian Institute of Town Good morning to Mr Olutoyin Ayinde. Good morning. Good morning viewers. All right, so it's a conversation that a lot of people don't always have because we have a maybe skewed understanding concerning urban development and what fiscal planning really should be in a state. So let's start with understanding from your time as a commissioner and where you currently are. What is urban development? What is fiscal planning with regards Lagos state? Okay, I think it would be good for us to put it in the right sequence. It should be planning before development and that's why in Lagos state it's called the Ministry of Physical Planning and Urban Development because you plan first before you develop and what is planning really about when we talk about fiscal planning is it's about putting order into the land uses within a human settlement system. So when you say human settlements it can start from a village to a city to a state to a nation. So we are meant to first plan before we develop. The plan is actually the blueprint and that's what you follow eventually. Now this sequence between planning and development is akin to the sequence between thinking and speaking. You will understand that as a media person. You think first before you speak. You don't speak and then try to think about what you spoke. So you think before you speak and it's so important that the good book says that do you see a man who speaks without thinking? It says there's more hope for a fool than for him. So it's like say do you see somebody who develops without planning? There's also more hope for a fool than for that person because every development that comes without planning for it usually ends in chaos. So when you come to Lagos you'll find that Lagos, by the way I've been doing a nationwide tour as national president of the Nigerian state of town planners to assess the state of fiscal planning in Nigeria and of 17 states that have visited Lagos still stands far ahead of others because it's a state that has produced the highest number of fiscal development plans. There were those that were initiated before I became a commissioner in 2011. I served 2011 to 2015 which were completed during my tenure. There were those that were started during my tenure and completed. There are those that were also started and other administrations have come to complete and right now the state is still doing more. But let me say that the the challenge Lagos state is having is that of the explosive population you know which tends to even test those plans that it has because there are people who come into Lagos almost every minute you know and it says about a hundred coming every minute and more than 80% don't go back you know so and that's probably why people are asking for a special status for Lagos because it requires funding to prepare plans. It requires funding to implement plans. In fact if you prepare plans and you do not implement them you are probably on the same level as the person who didn't prepare any at all. So that's the that's the position. Then again when these plans are prepared you know they are what you call details. So some plans are global. They need to be brought down to the level of the details. This is a studio. This is a detailed design of the studio. If somebody just took out this room alone and brought the details out I showed someone outside that. Oh this is the this is the detail of a studio. The person will ask where okay where is this studio located. Then you want to say oh you see one building on 13A Kaode Abraham and then somebody wants to say where is Kaode Abraham. You see another map that says oh it's in Victoria Island. Okay where is Victoria Island. Victoria Island is part of Lagos Metropolitan Area. Oh where is Lagos Metropolitan Area. Lagos Metropolitan Area is part of Lagos State. Where is Lagos State? Lagos State is part of Nigeria. So that's how plans come from the general to the specific. So there are some plans that need to be taken down to the very details in Lagos State and where you get to those details those plans get in the hands of individuals that make it possible for the individual to challenge another person who is trying to do contrary. Okay so would you say that the the Lagos Development Plan has been all inclusive from from what you've seen um and where would you say it has lacked because over time every now and then we hear of a demolition someplace you know chasing you know a certain class of people you know to move to a totally different place. We hear of developments you know of the Babbage area now which for example has now been turned into something totally different. So are these all initial you know plans of what Lagos should have been like or are these knee-jerk um you know changes? No let's not forget that as far back as 1980 I will say I will say Lagos State Regional Plan and then a Lagos State a Lagos Metropolitan Master Plan and these plans already highlighted in in general terms what should be happening in each area of Lagos so when you see clusters of of informal settlements or what looks like ungoverned species those are not things that were part of the plans but like I said earlier the influx of population into Lagos goes beyond the resources that Lagos State itself can even cope with and you know as as these people come in Lagos doesn't give visas to the people so you can't tell people that they cannot come in. They look for the the most vulnerable places they look for the wetlands and you know places that they think or because nobody's using them now we can get there but every one of these things has a plan for example there's supposed to be a coastal road running parallel to the to the Atlantic Ocean it's been coming it's it's it's it's a West African route that's been coming from Ghana, Togo, Republic of Benin supposed to pass through here to Cameroon so the truth is that when when the right of ways for those those for roads like that are needed and the government will still go out to claim them because those who are staying there are staying there illegally and nobody actually approved those settlements there so that's what that's the experience Lagos is having. Okay I want you to help us break this down for the ordinary man on the street who needs to truly understand what is the plan to develop Lagos State? Now the way you develop a state it's in two it's in two ways and that's in excess there's the economic development plan and there's a fiscal development plan and the truth is that anything you plan economically is reflected on ground so every every major area of Lagos has its development plan the Victoria Island that we are now has a development plan it was reviewed when I was in office so it's still it's still current and there's there's a leaky master plan. I want us to take a particular area let's say Ajegule for instance you know one of those these areas in Lagos what would you say is the development plan for places like that the suburbs the rural areas like that in Lagos? Ajegule will fall between the Badagre area master plan and their papa area modern city plan there there are plans there are plans there which are existing and where you have plans it talks of the areas where the residential areas are supposed to be areas where the commercial the industrial and then the routine system all of those things are there you know so they are already there I think what we do not have now is for every individual to know about them because they are also available for sale those plans are printed and are being sold by the Ministry of Physical Planning and Urban Development so maybe this is the right time to tell people that the master plans of the various areas are available for sale at the Ministry of Physical Planning and Urban Development so if you really want to know what your area is about you can get the you can get the the information from the master plan I'm not in government now so I don't know the cost but I think I think I think a copy of the mainland modern city plan for example is about 10,000 Naira because it's a bulky it's a bulky document so we don't have an online version that people can download for free and read I think for some of them they do I can't tell you offhand but I recall that Badagre is online Leckie is online if you go to the website of the Ministry of Physical Planning and Urban Development you should be able to get it yeah all right all right I want to student talk about challenges that have existed and one of them of course for a lot of Legosians has been flawed in drainages you know and the inadequacy of those drainage systems to sort out flawed and I remember someone mentioned them you know that every now and then flash floods happen and so you know people just have to you know understand that that's you know possibility and you know deal with it but would you say that Legos has failed with you know sticking with its original blueprint with regards to building and development and that's one of the reasons we continue to see flooding in certain parts of Legos whenever it rains no we can't assume the failure of Legos right now as it as we speak forces that should realize the the changes we're experiencing globally in terms of climate change so the oceans are rising the sea levels are rising this just adds more to what is happening in Legos it Legos is a literal is a literal state it's low lying and therefore requires some some care and then it it also requires that our channels are kept clean most of the time and also that that people do not encroach so what we have seen over time is that is those areas close to the waterways the wetlands that many of those who who come in as as quarters that's where they settle and we have seen people who are building within the right of ways of channels and let me also say that I'm aware that and the Ministry of Environment and Natural Resources is also making efforts to to clear those things but we should understand that if we are able to keep you see that there are natural drainage facilities they are the lagoon the rivers the streams when we maintain the right level of development because what has often happened is that people do not understand that there's a technique to development you know everybody thinks they know about construction but there are invert levels for drainage so when when when there's a drainage here and there's a route here the the technique is that your development must always be higher than your road system so that your development can drain but we have seen on many occasions where people build lower than the road system so their their site can never drain into the drainage system and we also find cases where where the drains are made after development has come you know and it makes it makes the structures there lower so those are things that we find and there are challenges that I believe can be can be overcome so we know that you know there's been a huge influx of people into Lagos in the past few years and as the population of Lagos keep rising what do you think the effect would be on the fiscal planning of the state and development we must begin to change our concept of development I was with the governor last week and I was saying that and I've said this generally in Nigeria the we have a fixed land resource but our population is increasing and that's not about Lagos alone in 1971 my teacher taught me in my first year in secondary school that the territory Nigeria was occupied by 56 million people then we still had Bakasi now we don't have Bakasi means that we have less land now we don't have lake chat means that we have less resource now the certification has crept in so we still have less land but what do the UN projections say of our population now 211 million plus in a few years time this population because we are not controlling our population and because every one of us wants to reproduce and see our children's this population will become 300 will become 400 and on a fixed resource so it will be like putting a piece of bone before a dog when it's one piece of bone to a dog there will be no problem if you put the same piece of bone between two dogs there will be a backing and a snarling we should put that same piece of bone in the midst of 50 dogs you will not be backing you will not be snarling you will be war because they will fight so if you translate that into our fixed land resource and our increasing population you should be able to rationalize what the cost is for inter-communal clashes that we have now you notice that some committees had lived for centuries together with no fight but now the fight there's an inter-communal clash between a community in Kogi and Anambra there is one between some communities in In Kora state everywhere and all their clashing on is on land not on anything else so there is in developed countries in people in places that make progress they don't allocate land to individuals for development so you don't get to see someone in UK going to the market to go and buy cement to go and buy iron rods why because he wants to provide his own house planning truly answers to governance answers to good governance and we are good governance as established public housing policy you see corporations you see governments like council you see cooperatives building condominiums for citizens to access so that's one aspect of management of our land use that we must come to we must come to realize that we can't all be building our plots because as we are locating plots we are actually spreading spreading on a greek land and the more greek land we reduce we increase food insecurity the more we spread we get on wetlands we increase the incidence of flooding the more we expand we get on lands meant for conservation there is not all our land we're supposed to develop we're supposed to have land for conservation because the environment itself has to breathe breathe in the sense of the smoke that we emit from our kitchens the smoke that comes from the exhausts of automobiles if we don't provide that land for conservation the open spaces all those smokes get back at us and then it also threatens our health and reduces our life expectancy so it's all wrapped up in how we are able to manage our land resources that's exactly is my question Mr. Inde what's the plan for Lagos to manage our use of land as the population grows is that you know you've mentioned that in other parts of the world about you know houses and planning it's a government responsibility unlike here Lagos where you save up your money to buy your own land here in Nigeria exactly so what's the plan to fix that our population explode does the government plan to now buy back these lands from private individuals later and build condominiums like you said what exactly is the plan I think it's a conversation that we need to take for that first to get government involved but without serving in government now I can tell you that one of the challenges to have is what they call our culture because we have been made many Nigerians have been made to believe that you have to have your own house and the only way to have your own house is to get your own land fine there's nothing wrong with having your own place to live an apartment but most you have a land so we must address our culture that thinks you must get land so and if you have addressed our culture you must start from the grassroots talking to people and that's why part of my my nationwide includes traditional rulers people who are leaders of thought we can't government can't just decide that okay from now we build condominiums you will see people who will kick because they don't understand those you already built your own house you don't want me to build mine you know so there are things we must do we probably have to learn from what nations like Singapore did Singapore was building like we were doing until they decided because there was a policy that no Singaporean must be homeless they collapsed all those things and began to build condominiums we made there's a there's a model in legal state when I was in government I actually met it what it was taking to about 85 completion when I was in office called the project the sale gonga project where 11 families pulled their plots together small plots any plot but at the time yeah 11 families by the time they pulled them together we put in in place a 13 floor project with 48 dwelling units so that each of those families can get their shares back and then the rest be available for sale but it took time to talk to those families for them to agree so that's that's the model that Lagos and other governments must begin to look at again and say how we can sell it to the people because the people must have a buy-in so that so we need a lot of high-rise buildings yes yes well um good thing that you also mentioned the conservation you know aspect which I think is very important you know over time it seems we have lost a lot of nature lost a lot of trees lost a lot of you know waters and some of all of that I hope we can get back to that but one of the things that I'd ask before was whether the Lagos plan is all inclusive for the poor for those who can't afford these you know structures that you've just mentioned and of course there's an increasing number of those people in different parts of Lagos so does Lagos have a plan to accommodate those people somehow some way well Lagos has a plan for inclusiveness and you discover that every plan every master plan that is being done takes takes the consultant who are involved takes the government to the grass to go and talk to them but we're not going to achieve many of these things overnight they will come gradually I've seen I know not even seen I know of consultants who have been awarded some projects and they have been to the grassroots talking to them asking for their needs and things like that and these are these are the steps to take for for inclusiveness I think I want to make this conversation more focused regarding inclusiveness for the poor there are lots of newspaper headlines Lagos governments demolishes shanties on lekkiko star road Lagos demolishes so it's a lot so when you go on social media you hear the pain of people how you know maybe they're living in one shanty somewhere and then it was demolished so what really is the plan as Lagos you know develops as Lagos expands you know I mean as the government begins to expand her urban planning and development what is really is the plan for people who can't afford these high-rise buildings we're talking about are they just at their houses just demolish and they're rendered homeless what's the plan for them okay let's first understand the the basics of living in an environment to build a house you first find out that it's the right place to building when you know it's the right place then you ask for a building permit so when you do not first ensure there is a right place to build when you do not get a permit it first means that what you have is an illegal development so if it's if it's left to thrive that's encouraging illegality so there is there's going to be a time that that development for where that place is reserved has to take place if it doesn't take place then you're also depriving the the larger society from benefiting what we need is constant engagement with the people so that people don't build where they are not supposed to because if people build if you build on my land for example the day I need it I'll clear it if it's my land and I have the document and that's what people just see some places and they think oh nobody's looking let me stay there that's that's not the way it is done you ensure that it's a place that is conducive it's a place where it is and then there are processes so I think we must just increase the information to the people government must increase its public enlightenment that's the only way we'll solve it Miss Sanide I understand what you're saying some of these chances actually need to be demolished because you're illegal my question is what then happens to the people does the government have a compensation plan for them what happens to the people who then compensate illegality because if you compensate illegality then the person can also go somewhere else the person you tell that this is not the right place to build can actually go to another place that is not the right so they're rendered homeless and nowhere to go no you are you are looking at it only from one side I think I think no I think the government have a plan for the people whose houses then get demolished because what usually happens let me say this okay anytime you develop illegally you have chosen to take a risk so what government does is that it doesn't come overnight to tell you to move government gives you time to move I'll tell you I'll tell you how long I'll tell you a demolition that happened when I was in government and nobody even heard about it the identity ideally section were planning to reconstruct and then we had this visit with the governor where one of the residents actually told the governor then that I'm sorry your excellency we don't trust government and then we knew that we had to engage and by the time we engaged and told them the plans of government when it will happen the options that they had they took their various options and by the time they moved out the government came in and demolished so for every for every settlement that is illegal government gives notices how long there are there are various kinds of notices there are seven days notice because it's look if if they had permission if they had permit to build you will probably take long for example when government wants to expand roads and it's going to affect structures it doesn't come in seven days because most of those structures have fences they have approvals so the first thing there as is please submit all of your documents to to the ministry of physical planning okay and once you have an approver if the expansion affects your property there's measurement there's compensation why because there is an approval to build so you are compensating because there is a legal development okay so legal state government basically what you're saying legal state government only gives compensation to people who actually got permits in the first place to build because the government now needs to use that particular area okay we understand that let's quickly talk challenges before we go you know what would you describe as the biggest challenges with regards achieving you know the development plan of legal state the greatest challenge is resources it's resources and I saw why you were having your newspaper review yes I saw the issue of vat and I was saying to myself I wish legal state can be getting all of its vats but they have an opportunity now so because because development requires funding preparation of plans requires funding and that's what legos needs and you know that legos is attracting a population more than it can take care for so that's the greatest challenge is it's not I recollect when we were in government governor fascia I used to say that this is not the best time to be in government when I look at the people now I have sympathy for them I think we were in a better time then because now we were looking at about 17 million population they are looking at over 22 million population and the resources are not increasing the resources are less and we have more population so it's the greatest challenge that legal state has now you can see with the number of cars on the road the traffic it's so much I also want to talk about where you foresee legos in another 10 years because I believe that these are part of the plans these plans have you know 10 year 15 years 20 years the minimum is 20 years all things being equal which you have a better legos than now the blue line is there it hasn't been completed I'm sure within the next 10 years that will have been completed and then it can take can take traffic can take commuters from the bad agri exists to marina seamlessly we're hoping that the red line will have taken off we're hoping that there will have been a ramp up on the water transportation system so and if we also consider the trend now you know quite a number of offices now are working from home keeps less people on the road so we're likely to have a more free flowing traffic and and once public transportation has improved there will be less need for individuals to put their own vehicles on the road and we're believing I know that when we're in government we're trying to mop up all the mini buses because there are quite a number of them and when you have larger buses that contain more passengers and then you have the the rail lines working now we'll have free routes thank you obviously there's a lot of work that needs to be done and this also includes security because I've also seen people you know create the advantages of a better public transportation system and how it reduces the number of cars on the road and reduces the stress that it also causes on the road but thank you very much thank you very much Mr the national president of the Nigerian Institute of Town Planners and the former commissioner of the fiscal and planning and urban development in Lagos state thank you very much for coming here thank you for the privilege so up next on the breakfast we're talking about gas flaring and its implications on the Nigerian economy do so with us