CAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

1.1    BACKGROUND OF THE STUDY

Administration of physical planning has been the responsibility of all the three tiers of government in Nigeria over the years. The extent of involvement of each level of government is dictated by the operations of the various town and country planning legislation as well as the nation’s constitution. The fact is that the operations of the legislation differed among the regions and between the state and the federal governments.

Towns like Port Harcourt, Aba, Minna, Jos and Kaduna and Enugu have experienced extensive physical and infrastructural developments. These developments have been under the application of early Town and Country Planning Ordinance that had national jurisdiction such as the township Ordinance No. 29 of 1917, the 1959 Town and Country Planning Ordinance, and the recent 1992 Urban and Regional Planning law. The applicability of these laws plus a reasonable increase in the number of Town Planning Authorities in the metropolis were all meant to re-enforce the control of physical development in the city. The 1992 Planning law further ensured that the administration of physical planning in the country is the responsibility of all the tiers of government. The law provides for the establishment of a National Urban and Regional Planning Commission, a State Urban and Regional Planning Board and a Local Planning Authority at the federal, state (and the federal capital Territory, Abuja) and local government levels respectively. These bodies and their levels are for the purpose of the initiation, preparation and implementation of the physical development plans (s.5) and overall administration of physical planning.

In Enugu metropolis, there are some established planning authorities which have their administrative structure. The authorities have a politically appointed/elected local government chairman as their overall chairman; other executive administrative members include the town planner, a town engineer, a health officer, etc. In recent times, the composition of this structure has had much influence in the implantation of planning standards and controls in Enugu metropolis. This is explainable where the views of the town planner in the authority are stampeded. Some authority executives have been accused of abetting impersonation – incidences of “political party boys”, who parade as workers of Town Planning Authority, visiting building sites of developers to extort money from unsuspecting developers; and usurpation of development control functions.

Thus, the administrative structure of the development control machineries in Enugu arguably has some influence on the implantation of development activities in the study area, and this forms the thrust of the study.

1.2       Statement of the Problem:

In Enugu Metropolis, Development Control functions have been unimaginably corrupted. People who should not have anything doing with Town Planning activities are from time to time found at developers’ sites behaving as if they are staff from Town Planning Authority office. This act has been arguably attributed to some weak administrative set-up of the development control machineries.

In Enugu, the problems of political thugs impersonating as town planning staff; constant delay in the processing of development permit; illegal attachment of structures to existing ones; and incidences of collapse building, have been linked to the administrative composition of the planning authorities. This situation creates the impression that the Town Planners in the area are not really in charge. Or, that the development control machinery is not effective enough. This linking has primarily been based on speculations and is devoid of any empirical backing. The problem of this study hinges on the desire to empirically understand the influence of the existing administrative structure of the planning authorities and how this presently affects the development control activities in Enugu Metropolis. Hence, the need for this investigation.

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