Urban And Rural Settlement In Nigeria

Given the tremendous explosions of urban settlements and the crises of rural areas during the past two or three decades, the myth, reality and hope of a sustainable human settlement pattern seem to have been unraveled by the two UN Habitat Conferences of 1976 and 1996. Even though the unresolved human settlement issues have for long been grappled with by public policies in Nigeria, solutions to problems have continued to remain a mystery; with condition of living being ravaged by poverty. This paper examines and analyzes the general problems of development of urban and rural settlements as well as various shifts in policies and strategies by the Nigerian oil-based political economy with the ascendency of endemic poverty. The method of analysis

The background to Nigeria’s rural crisis, the socio-economic and political impacts of the crisis date back to the colonial era. This was when colonialism exploited resources of rural areas thus increasing levels or degrees of rural poverty and changing the entire structure of the rural economy. By transforming the nature of land holding etc, it further affected the nature and system of social production and productivity, the social and physical provision of infrastructure, the ecology and labor force recruitment as well as worsened the overall poverty level amongst rural residents. Hence, the crisis in Nigeria’s countryside centres essentially on productivity, food shortages, particularly for the urban dwellers, and dwindled per capita income which, invariably manifest a serious crisis of poverty, apathy and despair within the rural communities. What is the nature and magnitude of this crisis? The nature and extent of rural malaise are, of course, immense and perhaps immeasurable. While rural poverty is not a new phenomenon in Nigeria, it has nevertheless persisted despite the fact that the country is richly endowed in oil and other mineral resources (Karl,

This development has significantly affected the proportionate distribution of the urban and rural populations. It was estimated that between 1951 and 1953 the rate of urbanization in Nigeria was about 5 percent per annum (Ajeagbu, 1976: 32). But by 1963, the rate of urban growth in the country had risen to 8 percent per annum. The growth of large urban centres has been phenomenal and thus many urban areas were actually growing at much faster rates by doubling their populations within an interval of a decade (Ajeagbu,