By ‘Dotun Akintomide
Bishop Mathew Kukah has described the high rate of homelessness among Nigerians as a moral scar on the nation caused by government’s sheer neglect and frequent policy somersaults in the housing sector by successive administrations.
While lamenting the growing concerns arising as fallouts of the wide gap existing between the high-middle-low strata of the Nigerian society, Kukah said there is a burning need for everyone to be largely involved in how policies are formed.
“Homelessness, we say is a product of urbanization failure, but the elites must promulgate policies based on their recognition of the poor as the problem in our society.”
Kukah who spoke at the Lagos Architects’ forum 8.0 on the topic: “The son of man had nowhere to lay his head: Homelessness as a moral scar on Nigeria’s face” challenged architects to influence policies and environmental development by participation to ensure that policies induce long-term outgrowths.
He elaborated on the fact that policies, planning and politics are intertwined, and “that as we develop our cities, we need to be conscious of societal inequalities.”
Kukah stressed that professionals in the built environment must become more adventurous by conceptualizing daily, ideas that will solve the nation’s housing problems, especially among the less privileged Nigerians.
“Now, we have other countries worldwide with similar population growth challenges experimenting with the capsule hotel,” he said.
He cited a local example of the Nigerian nomadic population of the northern part of the country and challenged Nigerian architects to cater for the specific needs of the populace, which vary specifically from North to South and East to West, due to varying climatic types.
He noted that science is of no use if it doesn’t have the capacity to solve human problems.
“So we must employ science to address our shortcomings. Beyond exotic lives, Nigeria must come to terms with the huge scar on its face.
“Unfortunately, it might be impossible to solve the problem of homelessness in one generation, but we need as Architects, to have the intrinsic zeal to do something about it now towards the realisation of the whole,” Kukah stated.
