STATE OF URBAN INFRASTRUCTURE IN NIGERIA

STATE OF URBAN INFRASTRUCTURE IN NIGERIA

Urban infrastructure, also called sustainable municipal infrastructure, is an infrastructure that facilitates a place or regions progress towards the goal of sustainable living.

As earlier stated, Nigeria like any other nation has it owns stock of urban infrastructures like electricity, water, roads, communication, e.t.c. Nigeria urban the existing ones are in a deplorable state.

Lack of effective maintenance resulting from the current poor approach to maintenance and inefficient infrastructural management have largely contribute to the poor state of urban infrastructure which in turn has negative impact on the growth and development of economy. The approach to urban infrastructural maintenance does not encourage effective maintenance and efficient infrastructure operation. It is generally characterised by too much emphasis on new construction with neglect of existing stock, general absent of integration among different infrastructure management agencies, lack of property maintenance planning, problem of corrective system, inadequate fund, poor  and outmoded data management system, lack of property defined maintenance policy and standard.

Current finance for urban housing and infrastructure is inadequate both in terms of capital resources and of lending policies and conditions compared with the types of income and borrowing capacity of the large majority of Africa’s urban populations.

Lack of funds alone is not a root cause of poor infrastructure and services. It is a symptom of more fundamental problems. These include instability, lack of confidence, distorted economic policies, and difficulties of governance. The mobilization of public and private funds of urban infrastructure depends, in the long run, on the alleviation of these problems.

The impact of urban growth on housing and infrastructure is enormous. Demographic expansion of cities has created and will continue to create serious challenges in terms of affordable housing and water supply, transportation, waste collection and disposal, and controlling air and water pollution. Housing is widely accepted as the second most important necessity of man after food and followed by clothing.

Not only does housing provide people with the social values of shelter, security, independence, privacy and amenity, it equally plays a major role in the economy of any nation such as provision of space for production, generation of employment as well as access to income-earning opportunities.

The urban poor live in high urban densities, with unplanned urban spatial layout and mostly deprived of access to adequate housing, residential land, municipal services and other urban benefits. The better off trend to reside in the ordered, formally planned and structured high-income areas that enjoy municipal services. The key problems faced by Nigerians include very rapid uncontrolled growth of urban informal settlements, prevalence of substandard and overcrowded urban housing, inadequate basic urban services and infrastructure provision, declining urban livelihood options, incessant civil unrest and infectious disease and crime.