By Inusa Ndahi, Maiduguri
AFRICAN Cities Research Consortium (ACRC), has said that two-third of people in Maiduguri, Borno State capital, lived in an informal settlement without legal titles to establish ownership of the property.
The Lead Researcher of the Project, Professor Kawu Monguno, disclosed while interacting with Newsmen at the NUJ Press Centre in Maiduguri on Tuesday.
He said that in the past there were experiences where ordinary people in the society lost their lands and houses to land grabbers due lack of legal titles.
To this end, the ACRC in collaboration with traditional rulers and other stakeholders will implement coordinated project to ensure 50 women and 50 men own their land titles in Dusuman Community of Jere local government area and Maisandari Ward of Maiduguri Metropolitan Council.
“More than 2/3 of people in Maiduguri live in informal settlements and do have the titles they were supposed to have when people owned property, to secure them.
” As it is, 50 women and 50 men will own their land titles in Dusuman Community of Jere local government area and Maisandari Ward of Maiduguri Metropolitan Council.
“This is why we are coming in as a team of experts to help push this agenda forward for people to take up land titling,” he said.
He said the project is building on an existing effort by the Borno State Geographic Information System (BOGIS), which aims to better integrate informal settlement of residents into land titling processes.
Monguno noted that the intervention helped vulnerable groups – women and people with special needs – in tackling uncertainties around customary land tenure processes and loss of lands.
In her remarks, the Chief Executive Officer of the ACRC, Prof. Diana Miltin, University of Manchester, UK. said the ACRC project is conducting action research to unearth ways to tackle urban challenges in Maiduguri.
She said, not only in Maiduguri, the intervention is committed to urban reforms to accelerate changes that are essential for good health and economic prosperity in 12 African cities.
“56 percent of Africa’s population lives in informal settlements, so there is recognition among local and national governments of the importance and opportunity for urban development,” she said.
Miltin noted that, so far, the initiative has two projects going forward in the implementation phase in Maiduguri; land titling and how to make the land titling more effective to address security needs of vulnerable groups in the city.
She said, the second has to do with drug challenges in the foundation phase,
Co-researcher, Dr Haruna Ayuba of the Department of Political Science, University of Maiduguri, said Maiduguri is one of the 12 cities in Africa that was chosen for the project due to its peculiarities.
He said the cities emerged from the conflict, flooded with IDPs with overstretched infrastructural facilities, hence the need for citing the project.
“Also, Maiduguri is strategically located, bordering the three countries of Cameroon, Chad and Niger Republic. So, the city is faster in terms of development compared to all other cities, which is one of the factors considered to deploy this research here,” he said.
Also, the Head of Mass Communication Department, University of Maiduguri, Abdumutallib Abubakar, said they engaged key community leaders, including traditional and religious leaders to in Shehuri North and old Maiduguri, to deal with the menace of drug abuse.
According to him, a research, part of their findings was the issue of drugs, which they later discovered that the state government had set up an anti-drug committee, “unfortunately, it was not fully inaugurated” he said
