Stakeholders urge collaboration for South-West urban devt

South-West physical planners have stressed the need for collaboration within the region to ensure development.

The stakeholders made the call on Thursday in Lagos while speaking during the Inaugural South-West Regional Meeting on Physical Planning and Urban Development.

The Director-General of the Development Agenda for Western Nigeria Commission, Dr Seye Oyeleye, stressed the need for the region to shun working in silos, reiterating the need to work together to address some of the challenges mostly caused by the population surge.

“Not necessarily that they will be born here, but they will be moving down here. So, we need to prepare for that period. S,o it is at meetings like this that we can plan together. Because of the challenges of urban migration, Lagos bears the brunt and is still bearing the brunt. But today, you go to our towns; they have now been invaded. So, we need to plan; we are still in one country. We cannot tell them, ‘Do not come here; it is not going to work’. The constitution allows that. But we need to plan. We need to put things in place. So, it would be in our interest for us to work together and have a template on how we want to develop,” Oyeleye said.

Earlier, the Lagos State Commissioner for Physical Planning and Urban Development, Dr Oluyinka Olumide, said, “The whole idea is to see how what we do in Lagos impacts positively in other states and vice versa,” adding that the meeting was timely and strategic.

“This meeting is our response, an action-orientated step to build a framework for coordinated planning and regional development across the South West,” he added.

According to him, the South-West region is experiencing rapid urban growth, increasing population and migration, expanding economic activity, and rising spatial interdependence among the states.

“Ours is one of Nigeria’s most dynamic regions, full of opportunities for growth, innovation, and shared prosperity.

Yet, these opportunities also come with planning and development challenges that do not respect state boundaries,” he stressed.

Olumide pointed out that accelerating urban expansion, infrastructure deficits, housing shortages, insecurity pressures, and the increasing complexity of managing growth corridors that connect one state to another cannot be effectively addressed by any single state acting alone.

“They demand coordinated thinking, institutional cooperation, shared standards, and a common regional vision,” he maintained.

He highlighted that the meeting represents a deliberate and forward-looking step towards strengthening collaboration in physical planning, urban development, and sustainable land governance.

“It opens a new chapter of structured engagement grounded in mutual understanding, shared priorities, and collective responsibility. We are here to exchange ideas, identify common challenges, and, most importantly, agree on practical pathways for deeper cooperation that will deliver measurable results for our people,” he said.

In his paper presentation, Waheed Kadiri stated that the integration of the South-West should be focused more on the satisfaction of the basic needs of the people rather than the competitive Internally Generated Revenue yardstick.

“A situation that results in rich states and poor people. The elitist approach to formulating policies should be examined towards upturning the top-down approach in a way to give the people a sense of being part of the policies that will affect their lives,” Kadiri said.

According to him, leaving integration to those in government alone may not be as successful as letting the community be part of the decision-making and enforcement.