Town planners charged to uphold ethics

The Nigerian Institute of Town Planners, Lagos Chapter, has reiterated the need for its members and others in the built environment to strictly uphold the ethics of their professions.

The relevance of adhering to the code of ethics and its effect on the society was the main topic of discussion at the chapter’s 32nd Annual General Meeting with the theme, ‘Keeping faith with standards and rules towards promoting better values, professional ethics and code of conduct for town planners’.

According to the Permanent Secretary, Lagos State Ministry of Physical Planning and Urban Development, Mr. Folusho Dipe, the success of any professional depends on strict adherence to codes of conduct.

A senior lecturer at the Department of Urban and Regional Planning, University of Lagos, Dr. Taibat Lawanson, said that gaps such as the planners’ responsibility to the public, clients, colleagues and the profession should be addressed.

“There is a need for intense rejuvenation of professional culture of the urban planning profession, because we are in an urban age where global attention is shifting to cities as well as in a period of national rebirth due to the new government and the principles being espoused,” she said.

Lawanson noted that the gaps must be addressed to help the profession of town planning to remain relevant and strategic to national development.

A former chairman of the chapter and the founder of Initiative for the Promotion of Equitable Environmental Practice, Mr. Makinde Ogunleye, said it had become necessary for town planners to move from the theory of ethics to practice.

He also called on the Lagos State Government to review its regional and master plans.

“We need to have a new urban development policy for Lagos State,” he said.

Ogunleye also urged the Federal Government to review the National Building Code, which he said did not give details of vetting procedure, thereby giving planners room to vet at their own discretion.

“Government agencies should also be strengthened and made to work on specified rules,” he added.

The immediate past chairman of the state chapter of the NITP, Mr. Ayodele Adediran, said there was a need for principles to govern individuals in the profession.

“We should not put our code of practice on paper, we should enforce it because the profession to which we are called is to plan and direct the lives of people,” he said.

The Chairman, Lagos Chapter, NITP, Mr. Abiola Anifowoshe, noted that it had become necessary for town planners to rethink, repackage and rebrand the profession, while also ensuring the preservation of ethics, rights and privileges.