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FRESH details emerged at the weekend in Abuja as to the format of governments intervention plans through the proposed Federal Ministry of the Niger Delta, as development experts and environmentalists moved to draw up a road map for sustainable housing for the region at the 3rd Emerging Urban Africa international conference.

The President, Alhaji Umar YarAdua, who flagged-off the summit, hinted that two ministers overseeing infrastructure development and youth development respectively for the region would head the ministry, which he said was created to serve as the primary vehicle for delivery of government programmes and achieving rapid socio-economic development in the region.

Last weekends session of the Emerging Urban Africa Conference, the third in the series, deliberated on the theme: Housing and Sustainable Development n the Niger Delts. The yearly series was initiated in 2006 in honour of the doyen of housing and urban development in the country, Professor Akin Mabogunje, who turned 77 last Saturday.

Stressing again that the take-off of the Federal Ministry of the Niger Delta and the speedy roll out of its development programmes would bring long-lasting and viable solutions to the challenges facing the region, the President noted that the Niger Delta is critical to Nigerias economic development, being responsible for the production of oil minerals, which account for more than 80 per cent of the countrys foreign exchange earnings.

Pledging to improve the lot of the people in the Niger Delta, as all other citizens of the country deserve to have best quality of life, the President said, This along with sustainable national development, is the basis for the seven-point agenda. Towards meaningfully effecting the structured execution of the Niger Delta Development Commission Master Plan, we inaugurated the Niger Delta Technical Committee on September 8th, 2008, following the misunderstood and aborted Niger Delta summit. The committee is to examine previous reports on the Niger Delta and extract feasible and practical recommendations for immediate attention.

Speaking through the Minister of State for Environment and Housing, Mr. Chuka Odom, the President lamented that with a population of over 140 million, Nigerias housing deficit stands in excess of 12-14 million units, as home ownership rate is put at about 25 per cent compared to 87 per cent in India, 74 per cent in Brazil, 69 per cent in Egypt, 56 per cent in South Africa and 41 per cent in Libya.

But Prof. Akin Maboguje, who is also chairman, Board of Trustees of the Foundation for Development and Environmental Initiatives, which hosted the event, It is easy to argue that the unless serious attempts are made to tackle these environmental challenges and provide the peoples of the Niger Delta with simple decent, safe and affordable housing with all the amenities of portable water transportation that go with these, the nation would have done less than justice to this section of the Nigerian population whose region produces much of the wealth on which the rest of the country depends, he stressed.

According to him, three critical issues need to be resolved in connection with the development of the area. These are:

• to distinguish between collective and distributive justice in the matter, where the first simply seeks to provide general facilities as the pivot of development in the region, while the latter pays greater attention to the circumstances and real needs of individual households and families;

   

• approaching the housing need for what it is - the product of assembly industry with tremendous backward and forward linkages which could help to spawn a whole range of small and medium scale industries producing building materials of various types as well as furniture, furnishings and different kinds of durable consumer goods; and,

   

• acknowledging the need to learn from the from other parts of the world like Holland in the Netherlands where people have managed to transformed the region into one of the most pleasant areas in the world to live and work.

  Above all, he said, it is time for a clarion call to the Nigerian nation in respect of the continued rapid rate of urbanisation process in the country and the relatively puny effort the country is making to contain the process.

  Minister of Environment, Mrs. Halima Tayo Alao, described the issue of sustainable housing and urban development as critical to the quest for rejuvenation of the Niger Delta region. In her words, the greatest challenge to sustainable urban development between now and the 2015 target date for achieving Millennium Development Goals would be how to mobilise adequate and sustainable finances for housing provision and integrated urban development without which Nigeria would be unable to deliver on the MDG on slum and poverty reduction or realisation of Adequate shelter for all.

  She stated that the proportion of environmental degradation arising from oil exploration in the Niger Delta region is overwhelming, while the increasing crisis of youth restiveness in the region coupled with their inability to contribute to the improvement of urban economic base has compounded the dearth of reinvestment capital. She also stressed the need to resolve the unemployment scourge and apply a continuous innovation of unconventional strategies to deal with the problem of the environment.

  Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC) Chairman, Mr. Timi Alaibe, noted that housing presents many challenges in the midst of governments efforts to facilitate local, state, regional and national development, essentially because it is private sector driven and as a result, remains deficient in most part of Nigeria particularly in the Niger Delta where all indices of development are adverse.

  The Director, Regional Office for Africa and Arab States (ROAAS) at the United Nations Human Settlements Programme (UN HABITAT), Dr. Alioune Badiane, described the focus of the conference as very instructive.

  In his words, it shows the interconnected ness of housing with not only national economic growth, but also with natural resource exploitation. The damage to roofs of houses through sooth emitted from gas flaring and the damage to the natural environment due to oil exploitation are perhaps critical issues that scholars will profer solution to with a view to achieving environmental sustainability in the development of the Niger Delta.