Today is God’s appointed day; the day that the LORD has made. I will rejoice and be
glad in it. It is with immense gratitude to the Almighty God and a great privilege for me that
I stand before you to deliver the 63rd Inaugural Lecture of the Federal University of
Technology, Akure, Nigeria. This Inaugural Lecture is the third in the Department of Urban
and Regional Planning; since Professor D. O. Olanrewaju delivered the first in 2004 and Prof.
J.O. Fasakin in 2006; and it is the seventh from the School of Environmental Technology.
I started my academic career 29 years ago when I joined the services of the then Ondo
State Polytechnic, Owo on September 21st 1982 as Lecturer III but developed my research
interest in rural planning when I went for my Master Degree in Urban and Regional planning
at the University of Ibadan, Ibadan in September 1986. This period coincided with the period
when the Nigerian government started developing serious interest in addressing the problems
of rural dwellers with the establishment of the Directorate of Food, Roads and Rural
Infrastructure (DFRRI). I have since then been conducting human settlement studies with
particular focus on rural planning and physical planning administration. This has influenced
the choice of the title of this inaugural lecture and it is ‘From Rural to Urban: The
Nigerian Physical Planning Dilemma’. The task before me today is not only to present the
report of my research efforts so far on the subject area but also to chart a new course for the
development of the discipline in the years ahead, particularly as it affects Nigeria and
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Nigerians.
The lecture is divided into seven sections. After this introduction, is the section which
examines the emergence of human settlement as a prelude to the third section that identifies
and explains three different concepts that are germane to the understanding of the nitty gritty
of the lecture. This is followed by section four that discusses migration and urbanisation trend
in Nigeria. Section five makes an assessment of the Nigerian physical planning experience
starting with the evolution of physical planning while section six presents my research efforts
at resolving the physical planning dilemma. In section seven, presents concluding remarks
and gives specific recommendations for the improvement of physical planning in Nigeria
with emphasis on both rural and urban areas.