Environmental sanitation in Nigeria: colonial and contemporary
The state's preoccupation with sanitation reached a peak in 1985 during the latter months of the Buhari regime. Environmental sanitation was chosen as the theme for the fifth phase of the war Against Indiscipline (WAI), which was launched in Kano on 29 July 1985 by the then Chief of Staff, Supreme Headquarters, Major-General Idiagbon. He announced that a one million naira prize would be awarded for the cleanest capital.
Using Indigenous Knowledge to strenghten Local Governance and to counter Urban Inequality in Nigeria
Indigenous knowledge is now celebrated by many of its advocates as “the single largest knowledge resource not yet mobilized in the development enterprise” (Paul Richard, in Warren et al, 1996, 476). Recent titles like “Tradition as a Modern Strategy”, “Modern Dilemmas and Traditional Insights”, “The Indigenization of Modernity”, and so on reflect the growing prominence accorded culture and tradition in current development thinking and research. For a long time, African customs and traditions were misperceived as irrational and incompatible with the conventional strategies for economic development, or at any rate as ineffective in coping with present day needs and challenges. But with the economic crisis of the 1980s and 90s, and the policy failures associated with the formal government system, there has been increasing loss of faith in the Wester ‘external agency’ model of development imposed from the top by national governments and international development agencies. The undue emphasis which this pattern of development places on purely economic and quantitative growth is now blamed for the worsening problems of environmental degradation, widespread poverty, inequality, and the undermining of those values and institutions which hold these negative forces in check. The renewed interest in indigenous knowledge and institutions is in line with the current advocacy of the minimalist state and the ‘enabling approach’ as condition for good governance in a period of structural adjustment and public sector reform. Governments are urged by donor agencies, and are in fact obliged to reduce their role to what their dwindling resources and capacities permit; to decentralize the structure of governance, promote genuine partnership, and enlist the broad participation of non state actors and stakeholders, including traditional institutions and other community and civil society organizations. This trend has been reinforced by the UNESCO sponsored “World Decade for Cultural Development” (1988-1997), and other global initiatives which emphasize the cultural dimension of development, and the need to take local knowledge and practice fully into account in the development process (UNESCO 1995; Seragaldin and Teboroff; 1994). • This paper considers how indigenous knowledge and practice can be put to good use in support of local government and public administration in Nigeria, especially in the current efforts to alleviate poverty and counter social inequality and exclusion. The problems of poverty, neglect and exclusion are most pronounced at the local community level, in the villages and urban slums, where these communities ought to be encouraged to participate in, and bring their own agendas to bear on governance and development. It is at the local community level that indigenous knowledge appears to have the greatest potential to contribute to development if development policies and programmes are made to reflect local priorities, and build upon, and strengthen local knowledge, organisation and capacity. • One of the primary concerns of the Millennium Development Goals is to improve the health and living conditions of at least 100 million slum dwellers around the world by the year 2020 (UN-Habitat 2003). These slums and irregular settlement have become so pervasive in Africa that they now outnumber legally planned developments, and their social legitimacy appears to be no longer in question; but the appalling environmental conditions associated with them constitute a major threat to the health and well-being of the urban community. Part of the policy challenge addressed by the paper is how to support and regulate the urban informal sector and irregular settlements in order to promote shelter and livelihood for the poor, and at the same time ensure a safe, healthy and socially acceptable environment; how to ensure that the struggle against urban poverty and slum dwelling does not result in a campaign against the urban poor and slum dwellers themselves. The paper examines how urban poverty and the informal city have developed in Nigeria over the last 50 years; the extent to which government policies and programmes have helped or constrained the poor, and how these slums and irregular settlements can be upgraded and progressively integrated into the urban mainstream. It considers how housing and planning codes, standards and regulations inherited from the discriminatory policies and segregation of the colonial period have continued to inhibit the access of the poor to affordable housing and tenure security; how the inadequate provision of water, sanitation and waste management has led to the growth of a wide variety of water-borne and filth-related disease. The aim is to identify the lessons that could help to promote a more positive view and policy regarding the urban poor and the informal city. • The concluding section considers the essential elements of a strategy to improve the informal city and the conditions of the poor, paying particular attention to the roles which state and local authorities, the international development community and the urban poor themselves could play in a collaborative effort to build safer, healthier, more inclusive and more equitable cities. It also considers how to enlist indigenous knowledge and traditionally based institutions in urban neighbourhoods and the informal sector in the effort to ameliorate the adverse effects of rapid urbanisation, especially in the critical areas of housing, environmental health, infrastructure improvement and service delivery. Finally, paper comments briefly on the indigenous knowledge movement as an appropriate local response to the growing tempo of globalization and to Western knowledge dominance in African development.
The incidence of dead and dying fish in the Moray Firth, September 1963
Dead and dying fish were reported from the Moray Firth during a period of 15 days in September 1963. The initial mortalities were in the inner Firth, but they later spread outwards, especially eastwards along the southern shores of the Firth. Mass mortalities of the lugworm (Arenicola marina) also occurred in Scottish waters in 1962 and 1963, and at Balintorein Easter Ross fish and lugworm mortalities were contemporary.