Soludo Insists on Compliance with Physical Planning Law, reaffirms commitment to urban regeneration in Nnewi
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The Government of Anambra State has reiterated its commitment to ensuring compliance with physical planning law in Anambra State, as part of its promise of a livable homeland. Speaking, the Commissioner for Physical Planning and Urban Development, Barrister Chijioke Ojukwu, said that the government is determined to enforce the physical planning law.
He further revealed that the government is fully committed to urban regeneration efforts in Nnewi, a key commercial and industrial town in Anambra State. “The Governor has begun the Nnewi urban regeneration in earnest”, Barrister Ojukwu said, revealing that the long-abandoned Nnewi Mall will soon be brought to reality in addition to the government’s plan for Nnewi inter-city and intra-city bus terminals, a recreational centre, and an arena like the Ekwueme Square in Awka or the Okpara Square in Enugu. All these projects will be delivered in Nnewi within the tenure of Governor Soludo’s administration.
Narrating in detail the challenge of town planning in Anambra State, Barrister Ojukwu lamented that in Onitsha, there is active encroachment in Bright Street and Johnson Street, as well as in different parts of the state. This, he said, distorts urban development. He also pointed out that some residents build in places they are not supposed to. “People brazenly build on waterways and do not even think of any application to the state authority for approval. They just feel that if you have money for cement and blocks, you just go ahead and build,” Barrister Ojukwu observed.
The Commissioner also regretted that it appears that many people in Anambra State are not aware or unwilling to comply with physical planning law. However, he assured that such illegal posturing can no longer continue under the watchful eyes of Governor Charles Chukwuma Soludo. “The lack of knowledge of our people or their unwillingness to comply with the physical planning law is a major challenge,” Barrister Ojukwu said.
In some instances, according to the Commissioner, people simply assume that physical planning law only applies in the urban areas, not villages. “Sometimes, you observe that people assume that physical planning law, even if it exists, applies only to the city. But the law applies to the entire state,” Ojukwu assured, while emphasizing that the main challenge is “to get people informed about the physical planning law”.
Barrister Chijioke Ojukwu is the pioneer Anambra State Commissioner for Physical Planning and Urban Development. Upon resumption, he noticed a gap in the Ministry’s workflow, which he has since addressed. “When I came here, there was an absence of a workflow chart. There was no legal department.
But we have created a proper workflow chart, and the legal department has also been established to review all applications for approval in line with the physical planning law. Applications are now subjected to legal review. Before then, there was an alarming rate of non-compliance,” Ojukwu said. The seriousness of the gap was more elegantly noticed considering that at the onset of the new dispensation, “over 200 applications reviewed by the legal department failed regulatory compliance,” the Commissioner noted.
The Anambra State Government’s commitment to fully implement the physical planning law spotlights Governor Soludo’s agenda to restore law and order in Anambra State. It further reflects the government’s declaration of a state of emergency on the environment, as well as Governor Soludo’s promise to regenerate Anambra’s degenerating cities and prepare them for the future.
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