By Muhammad Abba
Cities generally perform multiple functions; they serve as the most important human habitations, the manufacturing and commercial hubs as well as centres of innovations and civilization. As a consequence, lands within major cities like Kano are organized into residential, industrial, commercial, educational, institutional and recreational uses. Each of these land uses is not only important but indispensible for the efficient functioning of the cities. Combined together, the uses constitute the main components of the city’s physical environment. Thus, none of them should be relegated in favour of any other and none should be prioritized at the expense of the others.
Unfortunately this is exactly what is happening right here in Kano city. The arbitrary conversions of plots of land; originally assigned for schools, offices, parks, gardens, mosques and monuments into shops, malls, supermarkets and filling stations, is an example of how some land uses are promoted at the detriment of all the others. The arrays of lands converted to commercial plots within the city in the last six years are numerous: the three city gardens along Kundila Maiduguri road, a portion of the central Eid ground and Fagge Jumu’at mosque, Kofar Pampo-Hauren Wanki section of Kano city walls, Daula Hotel, Triumph Publishing Company, Kano Radio Corporation at Takuntawa, Shahuci Motor Park, Gidan Zakka, a section of Kano State Polytechnic, a segment of the Ministry for Rural and Community Development and most recently the space around Gwauron Dutse hill.
A glance at the catalogue of the conversions will reveal that almost all the lands involved fall squarely within the ambit of public spaces. These are places that are open and accessible to the general public irrespective of gender, race, ethnicity, age or socio-economic status. Examples of public spaces include: roads, pavements, public squares, parks, gardens, zoos, religious places, public buildings and monument sites. The importance of these in the socio-political, economic, ecological and psychological wellbeing of Kano city needs no emphasis here.
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The conversions of these public spaces are not only altering the initial city’s plan but they are in many cases detrimental to the physical environment. All the properties concerned are handed over from the public ownership to either the ownership of individuals or groups through the process of privatization. Since privatization is the process by which a piece of property or business goes from being owned by the public sector to being privately owned, the changes are therefore removing important places from the domains of the citizenry into the spheres of individuals.
This is disappointing and constitutes a tragedy to the field of urban land use planning in the metropolis. This is primarily because all the exercises are done by the authorities responsible for planning and administering the urban land in the city. Secondly, the conversion exercises completely disregarded the concept of Functional Efficiency which is the central goal in planning the urban land and planning the city in general. Functional Efficiency means the best and the most efficient use of land which results in the greatest benefit to the society. It is built upon three principles which are: Institutional Justice, Social-economic Equity and Environmental Acceptability.
The principle of institutional justice requires the respect of rights which arise from qualifications under an established rule or institutions. This entails that to achieve the best and most efficient land use, the initial formal land use plans, allocations and regulations most be strictly adhered to. However, there is a clear violation of this principle in the on-going exercises as the initial formal land use plans of the metropolis are completely or partially distorted in the name of promoting commercial activities, physical development and beautification of the city.
Socio-economic Equity refers to commitment to fairness and justice in planning and allocation of the land to the people. In the current spate of land use conversions, this principle is also thrown to the wind, because the beneficiaries of the re-allocations of land are mostly the high ranking politicians, their families and cronies, their clients, contractors, business magnates, traditional and religious leaders as well as top civil servants. In most cases, the low income petty-traders, artisans, labourers, messengers, classroom teachers and other lower level civil servants are left out. In several instances, latter categories of people are evicted from where they are earning simple but legitimate livelihoods without the provision of any alternative to them.
There is also a complete disregard to the principle of Environmental Acceptability as majority of the conversion projects are not environmentally sustainable. Some of these projects involved destructions of the existing green areas of the metropolis like parks, gardens and other forms of urban vegetation, only to be replaced with buildings. Others involved converting vacant lands, such as the premises of mosques and government ministries, to physical structures. All these have serious negative consequences to the city’s ecosystem.
The major roads, streets, corners and junctions of the metropolis have been turned into shopping complexes. But the bulk of the commodities traded in the shops are not produced in the city’s four industrial estates; rather they are imported from China and Dubai or brought in from Lagos-Ibadan-Abeokuta industrial axis. The economic status of the metropolis has thus been diminished to a mere dumping ground of finished industrial goods and the traders simply reduced to middlemen or intermediaries between manufacturers and consumers.
If the conversions are done purposely to promote physical development of the metropolis, as argued by officials; then the developers failed to consider the significance of every land use within the city. Because in addition to economic value, every development project must equally respects the socio-cultural, historical, scientific and ecological values of the land; since economic value of the land is by no means better than socio-cultural, historical or ecological values. Also, cities are beautified not by converting open spaces to built-up areas; but by planting flowers, trees, shrubs and other decorative greenery along the roads and streets and around some planned spaces.
The claim that such public spaces are privatized because they became the hideouts of criminals simply exposes the inability of the system to ensure adequate maintenance of security within the city. It also exposes the failure of the authorities to make all the public lands and properties to optimally function the way they were originally planned to. Thus, we passionately appeal to the authorities in Kano, as a matter of urgency, to ensure that these wanton land use conversions are not only halted but rectified. Ours is just to advice and to enlighten, but the power to execute rests on the government. Failure to stop and correct the wrongs will, sooner or later, lead to adverse socio-economic and environmental effects on the city.
Mahmud Abba PhD
Department of Geography,
Bayero University, Kano.
