This process of housing provision draws on non-state interventions to shape and plan Nigeria’s cities, and could be considered an example of insurgent planning. Through this discussion this paper argues that housing delivery in Benin is typified by practices that is dominated by the privatisation of housing delivery and implemented often in small-scale informal form, rather than through large scale privately controlled formal companies (Ikejiofor, 1997, Udechukwu, 2008, Makinde, 2013). The state plays a small limited role and this reveals disconnection, intersections, and innovative solutions alongside unchecked negative outcomes. Ultimately this paper theorises these negative outcomes as evidence of a form of problematic insurgent planning or planning from the bottom-up / alongside the state, but which produces some very bad outcomes for resident. In the light of this, this paper will seek to analyze these bad outcomes and its effect on the quality of housing delivered in Benin City.

Uyi Ezeanah

Doctoral Researcher
Department of Urban Studies and Planning
The University of Sheffield
uezeanah1@sheffield.ac.uk