Written By: Tpl (Dr.) Joel Ademisoye
Town Planning is a noble, worthy and rewarding profession or career in Nigeria, which requires basic educational qualifications, training and experience of practice as stipulated and mandated by the Federal Government of Nigeria (FGN) under the Town Planners Registration Council (TOPREC) Decree 3 of 1988, which became an Act of Parliament (CAP 17 LFN 2004). It is the country’s preeminent government Town Planning institution, which determines, who are Town Planners, sets the educational standards and skills for persons desiring to be Town Planners, practice as a professional Town Planner, reviews and regulates the standards from time to time, it is responsible for the securing and maintenance of a register of professional Town Planners, regulating and controlling of the practice of the profession, offers discipline to erred professionals and perform other duties in the interests of the profession and the institution of TOPREC.
It is imperative for those who are interested and seeking the profession or career opportunities in Town Planning to have met and fulfilled the required educational qualifications, training skills and internship practice after graduation from an accredited and recognized Town Planning Program at the university or a Polytechnic educational institution in Nigeria or a foreign country. First, you must meet and fulfil the educational qualifications to be acceptable, sit for and successfully pass a professional examination and be inducted into the Nigeria Institute of Town Planners (NITP). Following the membership in NITP, you need to apply to TOPREC for admission, take the professional examination and pass it, in order to become a registered Town Planner in Nigeria.
WHERE CAN A TOWN PLANNER WORK?
This is one of the most frequently asked questions from the students in Town Planning Schools in Nigeria and all over the world. I must confess the field of Town Planning is wide and expansive in terms of where one can work or find employment opportunities. One needs to be cognizant of the Town /urban Planner’s educational background, expertise/specialisation, interests, skills, computer knowledge, etc. Today, Town Planning is a profession, which is anchored on a multi-disciplinary approach, which means that students are derivatives of a wide spectrum of subjects, disciplines, professions, etc, such as economics, political science, sociology, history, geography, law, architecture, computer science, to mention a few. Considering this diverse backdrop of many subjects and disciplines, which could lead to many specialized areas within the fields or professions of Town and Regional Planning- if you choose to, you can be educated, trained and seek employment as an Economic Planner, Social Planner, Historic Preservationist, Town/Urban Designer, Land Use Planner, Zoning Laws, Educators/Teachers, Consultants in Town Planning, Environmental Planner, etc.
Why Is Nigeria In Need of Town Planners?
Nigeria is a developing country, which is characterized by underdevelopment, perennial and chronic problems of environmental abuse, unplanned and dysfunctional land use, and non-functional towns and cities like Owo, Akure, Ibadan, Kano, Kaduna, Port Harcourt, Calabar, Enugu, Aba, Lagos, Abuja. The roads in many of these towns and cities are characterized by gridlock and traffic jams. This condition is revealing the poor supply of roads and other infrastructure deficiencies-inadequate, clean drinking water supply, epileptic electricity supply, poor recreational facilities, etc in the Nigerian urban centres. To make matters worse, many of these towns and cities lack the Master Plans to offer the necessary land use policies, and standards, to implement the current and future developments in the urban space. The results are disastrous, polluted and degraded environments, attributed in part to the development of unplanned growth of slums, shantytowns and leapfrog developments across Nigeria. You may recall that Lagos, which is sitting at the top of the hierarchy of the Nigerian Urban System and the Commercial Capital of the country, in 2022, was ranked as the second worst liveable city in the world (Source: Biodun Busari, “Lagos ranked second worst liveable city in the world,” Vanguard, June 23, 2022.). Also, the country has been engulfed with the nuance and menace of the reports of building collapse across Nigeria, with the historic event at the 21-story edifice high-rise building in Ikoyi, Lagos (Source: Ben Ezeamalu and Abdi Latif Dahir, “Building in Nigeria Had ‘Abnormalities’ Before Collapse,” The New York Times, Nov 2, 2021.). Also, in Nigeria professional Town Planners are in short supply, which imposes an enormous constraint or limitation on the efforts of planning for and management of the towns and cities across the country.
Against this backdrop of urban contradictions, conflicts illogical government policy, land use practices and inappropriate economic and social activities by the Nigerians, with the negative consequences for the urban environment that we live in, Town Planners are faced with a multitude of planning problems, requiring a strong responsibility, meaningful tasks and bold actions, to make the Nigerian towns and cities liveable, workable and enriched with a recreational facilities that are appropriate and conducive for human living and their health as comparable to urban space elsewhere in the world. Hence, Town /Urban Planners are equipped with the knowledge, training and skills to work in the government/public or private sector of the Nigerian economy outside its traditional core areas of town planning, as public policy analysts, housing experts or land use planners in the oil companies, advocacy planner for the community groups, law firms in addressing zoning issues, etc. In today’s job markets, Town Planners are competitive and dynamic by considering the multi-disciplinary background and approach, which makes the profession of town /urban planning versatile and adaptive to the job opportunities in the many ministries/agencies of government or private sector involving many companies in Nigeria. Imagine, that town planners can grow their skills, talents and professional experiences to become land developers or a builder of affordable housing for the Nigerian poor and low-income groups in the country.