URBANIZATION AND ITS PROBLEMS IN RURAL COMMUNITIES
ABIA STATE UNIVERSITY UTURU
A TERM PAPER ON
THE EFFECTS OF URBANIZATION
AND CHANGES IN ECONOMIC SYSTEM ON LAND POLICY STRUCTURE OF MY COMMUNITY
PRESENTED BY
NAME:
NWABUISI DENNIS .N.
INTRODUCTION
There have been questions asked about
the physical land policies of different communities. My own community is not an
exception though land policies varies from one community to another depending
on the existing rights and customs exercisable by the inhabitants of such
community right from the ancestors who lived in the community back in the days.
Using Itaja Obuohia Olokoro in Umuahia
south local government area of Abia state being my community as a case study, I
am going to highlight the land policies practiced in my community and the
effects of urbanization on these land policies that has existed in my community
which where eminently practiced in the past by the people in my community as
directed by the village head or the head of our community. My work will at
least answer some of the questions that have been asked concerning the effect
of urbanization in my community.
DEFINTION
OF THE TERM LAND POLICY AND URBANIZATION PROPER
Land policy can be defined as an
international and interdisciplinary journal concerned with the social,
economic, political, legal, physical and planning aspects of urban and rural
land use. In other words physical land policies are those policies that guide
and regulate the use of land in my community and in our modern day today
urbanization has encroached and taken so many practices away from my community.
URBANIZATION
DEFINED:
Urbanization is the physical
growth of urban areas as a result of rural migration and even suburban
concentration into cities, particularly the very largest ones. Urbanization is
precedent mainly in third world countries and developing communities and
nations.
Itaja Obuohia Olokoro is a rural area that
is located in Umuahia south local government area in Abia State. There are so
many land policies practiced in my village (community) also it has to be noted
that land policies varies from one community to another depending on the norms
and customs inherent in such community.
They are listed and discussed below;
·
Changes
in settlement pattern i.e. closed settlements
·
Communal
use of family land.
·
Land
ownership structure was patrilineal
·
Transfer
and sale of land in my community.
·
The
spiritual concept of land in my community.
·
The
concept of bad bushes.
·
Poor
development and inadequate development on land as a result of low population
density.
CHANGES
IN SETTLEMENT PATTERN
Right
from the conception of my community as told by our great grand fathers, they
always come together and live together and this is achieved by the movement of
people in groups and the acquisition of land in the olden days known as “Right
of first occupation”. Here, these people in my community come together to secure
a common land called Ala Ohia or Ala Ezi of which they build their houses and
decide to live together and farm together in such location. This lead way for
communal reasoning, gathering and quick understanding of each other. Conflicts
were reduced and people live in harmony in the community and everyone lived in
peace. There were no problems of people struggling to secure personal land.
The colonial masters saw this and
never terminated the arrangement the people living together in my community
until the concept of urbanization came reckoning on my community. Urbanization
has gone a long way in causing people to scatter and go out far and wide to distant
places in search of greener pastures leading to scattered settlement pattern
and structure.
The diagram below graphically
explains the effect of urbanization on the settlement pattern of my community.
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COMMUNAL
USE OF LAND
Back
in the days when people still live together in groups before the onset of
urbanization, people use land in groups and communities especially my own
community was practicing this system in the late 1980s whereby people farm on
community lands which is controlled by the village head to avoid the waste of
resources by regulating the farming seasons. Farming and agro based work was
practiced until urbanization came, first of all settlement of people scattered
and therefore people can hardly farm together because they are living far away
from each other and cannot come together again to farm unlike before, now
everyone acquires his/her own land and do his subsistent peasant farming with
his families. This has a side effect in the sense that if your family density
is beyond your capability as the man of the house you may not be able to feed
your family the way you should because of little land available for your as a
result of urbanization unlike the communal land that was big enough to feed the
entire community. People now find it difficult to feed especially those that
are not financially buoyant enough to go to the market and buy food as a result
of limited supply of land to such person. Mortality rate increased as a result
of low agrarian production.
PATRILINEAL
LAND OWNERSHIP SYSTEM
In my community, the practice of
patrilineal land ownership was inherent in my community in the sense that men
have the rights to own land and not women unless otherwise provided in special
situations by the village head or chief. This is done right from the ancestral
manner and approach of which in a family land known as Ala Ezi, the matured men
will be granted the rights to use land for both residential and agrarian
purposes of which at the death of the man, his son or heir (man or son) will
inherit the father’s right and possess all other rights over the use of such
land. Special cases may arise when a man dies and he has only one daughter the
question is “can she inherit the land of
his father?” the answer to this question is “YES” because she’s the only surviving heir of the man.
Nevertheless, since urbanization came
into my community, this concept of patrilineal land ownership has tended to
fail in practice like the way the fore fathers used to do it then. But is still
in existence though, it’s just that urbanization and modernization has given
women with resources the power to acquire and owe land in my community today
but for all I know, a woman cannot be the head of a family land according to my
custom and norm.
TRANSFER AND
SALE OF LAND IN MY COMMUNITY
According to our fore fathers, land
especially community land and family that I know were not sold out for any
reason but can rather be leased out to someone who must be a member of my community
to use mostly during the farming season after he must have met with the head of
the family of such land with his principal members and attaining all the
necessary requirements before the land can be leased out to such person. If he
is not a member of our community then he comes with kola nuts, jar of palm
wine, goat and his kings men would accompany him. This is called “Kola nut
tenancy” after which the goat will be killed and blood sprinkled over the land
granting the ancestors to allow the occupant to use such land, if these rights
are not performed then the land can never transferred to such person.
Since urbanization as people may say
has become an eye opener and now people have seen the economic value of land,
land as wealth, land as a consumption good, land as a factor for production,
land as a disposable asset has now made people in my community to easily sale
land and use the money for the inter personal needs.
THE
SPIRITUAL CONCEPT OF LAND
This has been an old system or
practice that was carried out by our fore fathers during their own time and
reign when there were no much churches and prayer places. The forefathers used
land in some specific areas as the “god” that they worshiped and they believed
that the land answers their prayers whenever they pray to it. More especially,
the fore fathers believe that land (god) was the source of their outputs
(harvest) during the farming or harvesting seasons.
Urbanization has clearly made us to
understand that there is nothing there to worship and introduced churches
everywhere which is drastically turning down the population and ego of the
people who still worship land as their “god”. We can rarely see such now in my
community though there are still some but they are very few and outdated as the
world is developing by the day their practices are worn out by the
conceptualization of urbanization and modernization and the invention of
science and technologies. So the olden day practice of using land as a god has
been 90% abolished from my community currently unlike the olden days when they
were dominating and I still believe that with time it will hit 97-98% as
urbanization keeps on enlightening us.
THE
CONCEPT OF BAD BUSHES
This concept is not new at all in my
community back in the days when our ancestors lived. They say that there is a
bush called “Ohia Mmuo” which means “evil forest”. This curtails so many
meanings and reasons why this bush is called this strange name and there are so
many reasons behind the concept. The land referred to as bad bushes are land
were people are been casted into as a result of one bad omen or taboo committed
by these people which can be stated as follows;
·
Armed
robbers that were killed in the act
·
Ladies
and women that gave birth to twins in the community
·
People
that die from illness like leprosy and some other ailments
·
People
that commit crimes in way or the other regarded as taboo.
This bad
bush was seen as a place where people with bad morals and character and
shouldn’t be found in the community are kept or disposed and there is no sort
of settlements in such area or land as a result of this effect.
Urbanization has crunched into my
community and this practices have been abolished by the modern day
civilization, churches, schools, hospitals, cemeteries etc are now built in
such lands in other words, these large expense of land that was never put to
use back in the olden days are now used for special properties that enhance the
standard of living in my community.
The
table and diagram below explains the gradual encroachment and effect t of
urbanization in my community.
ACTIVITIES
LAND POLICIES
|
YEARS OF
PRACTICE
|
POPULATION IN
PRACTICE
|
·
Bad
bush practices
·
Communal
land Use
·
Spiritual
concept of land
·
Patrilineal
land ownership
·
Transfer
and sale of land
·
Communal
settlement pattern
·
Low
population density and decreased agrarian sector of my community as a result
of low population density and culture.
|
18th
century
|
1,500 people
|
1930s
|
1,350 people
|
|
1940s
|
1,200 people
|
|
1950s
|
1,100 people
|
|
1960s
|
1,000 people
|
|
1970s
|
800 people
|
|
1980s
|
700 people
|
|
1990s
|
500 people
|
|
20th
century
|
200 people
|
|
21st
century
|
150 people
|
|
22nd
century
|
0 – 5 people
|
SUMMARY
AND CONCLUSION
In summary and conclusion,
urbanization has gradually taken over the perceptions and attitude of people in
my community towards land tenure and use in my community in the sense that
urbanization has opened the eyes of the people in my community to foresee the
good hands of urbanization and civilization as others may call it, though every
coin has a tail and a head, there are also some negative effects of this
urbanization on the life of the people in my community despite its major goal
of development and betterment of the standard of living of the people in my
community. In time to come some of the primitive land policies would be nowhere
to be found again as urbanization keeps on encroaching.
REFERENCES
·
Hon.
Mbadiwe “Comparative Land policy”
1999 by Whytem prints Nigeria.
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