The National President of Nigerian Institute of Town Planners (NITP), TPL. Olutoyin Ayinde, has said the 1976 Masterplan of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) is long overdue for a review.
He said this on Tuesday in Abuja at the Investiture ceremony of the Chairperson Association of Women Town Planners of Nigeria (AWTPN), TPL. Bello Oluwayinka, and inauguration of the FCT Executive Committee of the organisation.
“Plans are about vision to make a blueprint of the vision you’re seeing from your current position to a place that you want to be in years. The plan is shoulder on the implementors saddle with the responsibility of administering budgets and resources to be able to implement those plans. Therefore, it’s not about having a plan but implementation is key,” Ayinde said in his keynote address.
He said that human settlements are living organisms which grows from time to time just like the human being so reviewing such settlement is necessary to the contemporary society.
“When the FCT Masterplans was made in 1976 by planning principle it urged to have been reviewed every five years to accommodate changing taste, technology and other things,” he said.
He urged the women not to see the association as a pressure group but focus on empowering her members by developing their intellectual minds to be productive and compete with their peers globally.
He said, “It is important to note that AWTPN is not to serve as a pressure group that sees her members as endangered species in the comity of urban planners nor should promote the victim mentality in its members.
“You are full-fledged urban planners who should focused on empowering your members by robbing intellectual minds to become relevant and compete with your peers globally.”
Speaking earlier, the Chairperson of the Association, said being an arm of NITPN, she and her team will operate within the umbrella to support its policies and project executions.
She said they would collaborate with relevant agencies regarding the Abuja masterplan to proffer lasting solutions on indiscriminate waste disposal, traffic, resettlement among others.
“We intend to carry out a lot of projects that are planning related within the FCT. There are a lot of planning issues starting from traffic, waste disposal and resettlement where people become victims of Internally displaced within FCT.
“We are out as a body to go beyond our regular meetings but interface with communities to impact them and finding last solutions to the plan of FCT,” Mrs. Bello said.
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