Going by the manner to which the urban rich live on the toil and
patronage of the urban poor, one is tempted to jump to this conclusion that
poverty is of complimentary essence in the urban centers of the developing
nations. For instance, the numbers of the affluent-owned organizations engaged
in supply of table water in small polythene sachets to the urban poor increases
as few public faucets supply potable water. Secondly, the new pocket of slums
of predominantly tenament houses, for the urban poor as targeted tenant rapidly
proliferate.
Thus the
governments, at the three tiers of Nigeria’s federalism, and the private
individual in the urban centers, play peculiar role in the birth, nature,
demise, effects and resuscitation of poverty in the urban environment. That
said, one sagacious saying of Yoruba’s is that an individual, who is non-poor
in the midst of two poor individual makes the number to become a minimum of
three. This demonstrates the all pervasive nature of poverty particularly in
the developing countries of the world, including Nigeria were we all feel the
effect equally but bear the
costs differently; and that the poor are almost indifferent to it while non
poor pay dearly for it.
Therefore the incidence of poverty is not only the poor that are
usually unconscious of it, the affluence also bear it perhaps the reason that
the non-poor do apparently not feel the pressure of poverty is that they
directly or indirectly pass most of it to the majority of the poor who are,
without options, dependent upon such non-poor means of existence rather than
living. But in any event of
social riots, labour protests and
political crises, for example, the non-poor had often been at the receiving
ends of the pressure of poverty born all along by the poor; although with a
reversal of the source on the long run. Given the sector of the economy of a
developing nation such as Nigeria, one is most likely prone to experiencing a
seemingly virtuous but really vicious cycle of the effect on component of
several sections of the society. In that connection, numerous scholars
including the World Bank
considered poverty in terms of capital for food requirement, communal infrastructural facilities with only a
few, such as making cursory
remark about poverty in the context of housing
and Building upon the great foundation of their works. Society can be
apparently affluent, as Nigeria currently is, yet the citizen is poor in
respect of access to basic needs, including housing.
The mirage of the affluence of Nigeria in relation to poverty
amidst plenty is demonstrated by the age-long experience of being in a
sub-region so abundantly endowed by nature. All studies define poverty according to a
poverty line, although the definition of line varies. In most cases, poverty
lines are based on local cost of a basket of minimum food and non-food
requirement. Standard are often obtained from local sources. In some, the
poverty line is expressed in terms of physical indicator representing minimum
acceptable level of well-being.
Housing as a socio-physical environment and
shelter can be said to be mere physical structures with characteristics of inadequacy
for human living. Of course, most of the tenements in our urban centers are
characterized by inadequacy of infrastructural facilities. The revealed
preference of the urban for this sort of housing’ is therefore not a surprise,
going by its low rental value dictated by deficiency in infrastructural
facilities, utilities and amenities. In a manner reminiscent of a realization
that non-food requirement, and many indicators had not considered urban poverty
in the context of quality housing. The second realization might be that housing
provision is so capital intensive as to always requires a combination of huge
wage and huge loan.
This income based poverty has never been
considered with little regard for affordability of basic quantum of adequate
housing by the urban poor. This indeed remains the ability and capacity of
households to meet with their periodic mortgage obligations without
jeopardizing their health and reducing family nutrition, was some of their
crucial factors include capacity to pay, income level, employment need and
purchasing power. Similarly, report indicate that
housing affordability has being the rate of population turnover, relatively
high rate of defaults, speed of housing consolidation and difference in income
and expenditure pattern.
The
situation of mass Nigeria’s urban poor is that, with low wage and no loan, the
society expects them to become housing owner-occupiers. Appreciating the
gravity of their predicament, tiers of government rose to the urban poor’s
challenge by dolling out programmes, rather than money to the urban poor for
alleviating the housing aspect of the policy thrust.
A report also reveals that actions and
expectations of the programmes have no resultant effect on the targeted poor.
it is not out of volition that the poor Nigerians are involved in the
re-building the built environment of the nation cities rather, it is out of exploitation and
frustration of the urban poor by the Nigeria’s non-poor who have housing
investments at the urban centers. Expectedly, since it is glaring in the levels
of exploitation of the poor, in future, the policy thrust on national housing
should address among other issues, an encouragement of the affluent to invest
in the tenement housing of improved standard for rental use of the poor. Thus
the cycle of degeneration of the physical environment continues as the
socio-economic exploitation of the urban poor accelerates.
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