Modernisation in cities of nigeria: A study of the recent thatched houses prohibition policy in Calabar (Cross River State)

Abstract

In tropical Africa cities and towns are a relatively recent phenomenon, except for some parts of West Africa and Coastal East Africa where towns and cities existed before the arrival of the Europeans. For example, in Calabar (Cross River State) Nigeria, merchantile contacts with Europeans from the 15th century onwards gave impetus to the development of trading post which became the nuclei of one of the oldest colonial settlements in tropical Africa. However, it is only since the mid 19th century that urban development in Calabar and some other cities of tropical Africa has increased in importance, due to the impact of industrial revolution in Europe. Today houses in most of the former colonial countries replicate the European architecture. Even when local materials are used as a matter of exigency, they are frowned at by policy makers and western trained urban planning professionals and condemned as substandard primitive and not modern. In the past few years, an increasing amount of research has been directed toward such value systems with respect to housing and the environment of houses in various cities. A number of these studies have been carried out to analyse historical documents such as the work of Holsti (1969). There are others concerned with natural hazard perception such as the studies by Burton and Kates (1964). Historical changes in attitude toward rural landscapes and urban housing scene have received quite a lot of attention from researchers like Lowenthal and Prince (1964 and 1965) and Tuan (1968). Specifically, there has been a considerable amount of research on housing and environmental quality. Some of these studies tend to suggest that value systems have a profound effect upon perceived housing quality (Jonassen 1949; Stokols 1973; Rapport 1968 and 1969). In countries of the developing world western value systems are accepted and used to define housing standards. Some of these value systems, expecially the housing standards, fail to recognize and appreciate the nature of the local and immediate environment. Urban development policies are formulated to reflect such value systems that are completely alien to the local residents. For example, houses with thatched roofs are now considered as depicting primitivity in the Cross River State of Nigeria. Today the residents of Calabar, the present capital of the Cross River State have been given six months order to modernize their thatched houses or the units be demolished. This order is to enforce the new military edict which forbids thatched houses in Calabar Municipality. The main purpose of this study, therefore, is to examine the ramifications and planning implications of the new edict. Such examination will include an assessment of the functions of the new Nigerian Environmental Task Force which has recently been created and which has jurisdiction over the thatched houses modernization edict. The study will also consider the extent to which those who were to benefit by the new law have turned out to become the victims of it.