Tracing Ecological Disasters through Poor Planning of Infrastructure for Housing Developments: The Ikot Nkebre Episode in Calabar, Nigeria

Abstract

Land-use changes from peri-urban agricultural settlements into urban residential communities have become prevalent in Calabar (Nigeria) over the last few decades. This trend has evolved as a response to the rapid population growth and the concomitant urbanization pressures, which have continued to induce phenomenal dimensions of urban growth in the city, since the last quarter of the 20th century. Faced with escalating land prices in the inner residential sectors of the city, many residents of the city are compelled to embrace these options that offer them the opportunities of acquisition of housing plots not too far from the city centre. One of the agricultural settlements, in which such conversions have recently taken place in Calabar, is Ikot Nkebre. Studies that have been conducted on Ikot Nkebre in this research project have shown that these conversions have not always been based on sound professional judgments or practices. In the present instance it was discovered that the layout plans used for the development of the urban residential community lacked essential professional details, such as the preliminary layouts of essential urban infrastructures (namely roads and stormwater drainage programmes). In the processes of poorly coordinated housing and urban infrastructural developments at Ikot Nkebre, stormwater was discharged without necessary precautions on agricultural and forest lands; and this has turned Ikot Nkebre into one of the gravest ecological disaster sites of Calabar in the present day. Massive destruction of lands that could have been useful for urban agriculture has also been observed. In conclusion, it has been shown that conversions of peri-urban agricultural settlements into urban residential communities could result in serious ecological consequences; unless the processes are properly subjected to sound professional guidance.