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Habitat International 35 (2011) 350e360

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Habitat International

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RuraleUrban ‘Symbiosis’, community self-help, and the newplanning mandate: Evidence from Southeast Nigeria

Onyebueke U. Victor*, Ezeadichie Nkeiru HopeDepartment of Urban & Regional Planning, University of Nigeria, Enugu Campus, Nigeria

Keywords:RuraleUrbanHometownCommunityNetworksDevelopmentAjalli (Ụjári)

* Corresponding author.E-mail addresses: victor.onyebueke@unn.edu.n

ezeadichie@unn.edu.ng (E.N. Hope).

0197-3975/$ e see front matter � 2010 Elsevier Ltd.doi:10.1016/j.habitatint.2010.11.005

a b s t r a c t

Recent resurgence of urban-bias and city-centric (development) thought is leading to two concurrent butcontradictory trends: the foregrounding of the city as the epicentre of investment or ‘engine of develop-ment’ as well as the relegation of rural development to the backwaters leading towidespread rural neglectand poverty. In Africa and other developing countries where rural poverty is quite peaked, gross lack ofcapital and infrastructure often combine with severe shortage of active labour force to deepen this vortexof rural neglect and deprivation. Amidst what seems like a see-saw growth toggle between the urban andrural spheres, attention is naturally drawn to those compensatory mechanisms that act to alleviate thesevere ruraleurban development imbalance. In Africa, and perhaps some other non-Western societies,where kinship and community ties are extensive, circular migration and associated exchanges betweenthe urban areas and the rural ‘hometowns’ are resulting in somewhat curious ‘culturally and economicallyintegrated systems’. At the backdrop of the reification of ruraleurban linkages approach by UN Habitat,the paper explores myriad dimensions of this persisting ruraleurban ‘symbiosis’ in Southeast Nigeria.Specifically, the paper employs a case study of Ajalliea small but aspiring local community in OrumbaNorth Local Government Area (LGA) of Anambra Stateeto confirmwhether or not the rural-centric trendsorchestrated by circular (ruraleurban) migration and the people’s associational life do contribute signif-icantly to rural community development. While framing these self-help development initiatives as objectcases of Public-Private-Community Participation (PPCP), the paper points the attention of urban plannersto the evolving ruraleurban nexuses and the new planning mandate they are instigating.

� 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

“Many of the urban residents of West Africa maintain strong tieswith the rural areas that they consider to be their home.They participate in the urban economy while returning to a ruralcommunity; they operate in geographically separate but cultur-ally and economically integrated systems” (Gugler & Flanagan,1978: 64)

Introduction

The current resurgence of urban-bias ideology and developmentis somehow instigating the corollary adverse effects of rural neglectand poverty (IFAD, 2001; MacTavish, 2009); peculiar set-backswhich are particular but not entirely exclusive to developingcountries (see Families USA, 1999, for example). Globally speaking,concrete evidence of rural demise and the consequent negation ofrural affairs to the backwaters appear in many forms and guises:

g (O.U. Victor), nkeiru.

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from the widening ruraleurban demographic and developmentimbalances (National Research Council, 2003; UNCHS, 1999, chap.4); worsening levels of rural poverty (Eastwood & Lipton, 2000;IFAD, 2001, 2010); to the observed recession in rural scholarshipplus the ongoing dialectical/epistemological dispute over definitionsand ruraleurban boundaries (Bell, 2007; Liepins, 2000). Again, fromthe emphases on peri-urban fringes, there has been a renewedresearch interest in ruraleurban linkages (see UN Habitat, 2005;Ticoli, 2002).

In sub-Saharan Africa, a vast majority of the 218 million peoplewho live in extreme poverty are domiciled in the rural areas(IFAD, 2001). According to Mule (2001: 1), rural poverty “is not justa statistic. It is about misery, under-nourishment, ill health, lackof education and other basic needs for decent living, shortenedlife expectancy, and lack of hope. inability to achieve their fullpotential.” Hence, growing inequality in rural and urban incomesand standards of living coupled with lack of capital, infrastructureand labour are leading to widespread rural deprivation and conse-quently, rural-to-urban migration (Barrios, 2008, in the Philippians;Ogideta, 2010, Nigeria). Rural sociology, agricultural extension

1 Dr. Chukwuemeka Ezeife (former governor of Anambra State, Nigeria January1992eNovember 1993) is known to have popularized ‘think-home’ ideology inSoutheast Nigeria to motivate indigenes of the State in other parts of the countryand abroad to invest in their Anambra State. In any case, the awareness andpropensity to invest at home has been with the Igbos since the 1970s after the endof Nigerian Civil War (see Chukwuezi, 2001).

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studies and rural development planning are replete with such ruraladversities and deplorable trends, and the diverse survival/copingmeasures employed by rural farm households and communities(Ellis, 2000). Consequently, contemporary rural development isdominated by intervention measures and development assistancefrom government, major development agencies, and more recently,NGO (nongovernmental organisation) efforts. Regrettably, self-helpor endogenous community initiatives by community people andtheir organisations have not received adequate attention.

Different ethnographical studies have observed the strongattachments that many urban Africans have to their hometownsor rural roots and the resultant socio-cultural and economicnetworks (Gugler, 1971, 1991; Trager, 2001). These phenomena arequite prevalent among the Igbos (see Gugler & Flanagan,1978, Smith,2005), and also among the Yorubas (see Aguda, 1998; Akinsorotan &Olujide, 2006; Trager, 2001) of Southeast and Southwest Nigeriarespectively. Widening droves of international migratory trends bymany Africans have not impeded these hometown networks(Beauchemin& Schoumaker, 2009; Uduku, 2002) but are, if anythingswelling the shear volume of remittances to the continent, currentlyestimate at over US $40 billion annually (Campbell, 2008; IFAD,2009). And so, studies that may easily have passed as ordinaryethnographic analyses have re-emerged in the spotlight due to theimmense economic and development significance of some enduringsocio-cultural norms. IFAD’s (2009) influential new publication,Sending Money Home to Africa: Remittance Market, Enabling Envi-ronment and Prospects, provides the appropriate context for thisassertion.

The paper explores myriad dimensions of this ruraleurban‘symbiosis’ (after Polimeni, 2006) in the evolving ruraleurbannexus in Southeast Nigeria. Specifically, the paper focuses on therural-centric trends orchestrated by circular (ruraleurban) migra-tion coupled with the people’s associational life and how this iscontributing to community development. Overall, three researchquestions are implicated here and they are, viz: (i) do circularmigratory trends constitute a compensatory mechanism that actto alleviate the severe ruraleurban development imbalance?; (ii) towhat extent do hometown associations (or town union, if you like)contribute to rural community development?; and (iii) what thenshould be the response(s) of urban planners to the new planningmandate necessitated by ruraleurban interactions or linkages?The paper is organized in three connected sections. Following thepresent Section 1 which is the introduction to the study, Section 2reviews the increasing body of literature on ruraleurban linkagesand why it is worth discussing in the first instance. Section 3,the case study segment, elaborates on the subject matter withreference to Ajalli, a small but aspiring local community in OrumbaNorth LGA of Anambra State, Southeast Nigeria. Section 4 pinpointsself-help or endogenous community inertia/thrust as the keypropulsive ingredient implicated in a purposive partnership forsustainable rural development. In addition, it explores otherfallouts of ruraleurban symbiosis, and how they are likely to impacton urban/rural planning and future policies/programmes.

Literature review

UrbaneRural linkages and emergent ‘Networks’

The strong kinship/communityaffinity ofmany urbanAfrican hasbeen the subject of many ethnographic studies on circularmigrationand hometown associations since the colonial times (Gugler, 1971,1991; Ottenberge, 1958, for example), and these phenomenahave come to characterize the African city (Geschiere &Gugler,1998;O’Connor, 1983). However, contrary to allusions by Beauchemin andSchoumaker (2009: 1898) that hometown associations (or ‘migrant

associations’ in their interpretation) are part of the British colonialgovernment apparatus “of fostering local improvements, as part ofindirect rule” (p. 1898), other authors believe that they are actuallypropitious offshoots of circular migratory trends and kinship/community ties (Nwosu, 2008; Trager, 2001). Trager (2001: 247)affirmed that they are “clearly indigenous in the sense that theydeveloped in Nigeria (and in other West African nations); no onefrom outside came along to help or encourage their formation.”

Over the years, these trends and their associated institutionalnetworks have evolved through what (Bah et al., 2003: 15) conceiveas series of material- versus social-asset mediating processes.

Common features of this cultural and socio-spatial linkagesbetween the urban and rural areas include: (i) routine phone calls,and circular visits between those ‘abroad’ and their ‘extendedfamilies’ in the hometowns; (ii) membership of hometown associ-ations and regular participation in community socio-culturalactivities/ceremonies (Nwosu, 2008; Uduku, 2002); (iii) the populartrend in village home, or ‘second home’, ownership (Chukwuezi,2001; Smith, 2005); (iv) contributing to rural facility/infrastructureimprovement and investments in small/medium-scale industriesand other business concerns (Bah et al., 2003; Chukwuezi, 2001);and (v) the enduring traditional socio-cultural cum political insti-tutions and native justice system (Okereafọezeke, 2002). Intrinsic inthese endogenous processes and structures, is a strong sense ofkinship ties and community identity, which are the essentialprecursors of self-help community development (Akinsorotan &Olujide, 2006; Trager, 2001), a matter we shall revisit later in moredetails.

More recent studies (such as Iorgulescu, 2003; Onyeiwu,Polimeni, & Polimeni, 2007; Polimeni, 2006) emanating fromEconomics, are beginning to apply ruraleurban linkages in the bidto clarify certain core economic assumptions. Iorgulescu (2003: 68)and Polimeni (2006) used game theory e the Ultimatum and theDictator Games e to establish how ‘cultural content is a betterpredictor of human behaviour than is the abstract model of rationaleconomic man’ in two ‘kindred-communities’ of Umuluwe andObigbo (Southeast Nigeria). The latter study (Onyeiwu et al., 2007),emanating from the same researchers and same case studies,applied logit regression to establish, among other things, thedifferential impact of globalization on the poor rural dwellers andnew urban migrants.

As simple as it may seem, the relationship between theurban and rural spheres is a complex one. In a bold attempt,Kammeier (2005) decomposes ruraleurban linkages into fiveinterrelated and often overlapping categories, namely: agriculture-based, physical or spatial (for example, roads, waterways, and otherchannels of transport, etc.), economic, consumption and service,and socio-political linkages. By implication, our current analysis fitsin squarely under socio-political category although its close linkswith cultural, and economic factors is irrefutable. What are themajor motivations behind this tendency bymany urban dwellers tomaintain strong ties with their hometowns? What is a home andwhat are its distinguishing characteristics? To think that Nnewi, anerstwhile rural community in Southeast Nigeria actually grew tobecome a widely acclaimed endogenous industrial centre becauseof a ‘think home’1 ideology adds to this curiosity about the home(see Brautigan, 1997; Chukwuezi, 2001). Blunt and Varley’s (2004)

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insightful definition of the home is very compelling and portraysthe sometimes paradoxical swing in its ‘material and symbolic’meanings:

As a space of belonging and alienation, intimacy and violence,desire and fear, the home is invested with meanings, emotions,experiences and relationships that lie at the heart of human life.Geographies of home are both material and symbolic and arelocated on the thresholds between memory and nostalgia forthe past, everyday life in the present, and future dreams andfears (p. 3).

Nowhere is this interface between the ‘spatial practices andimaginations’ so pronounced as in the dual existential manifesta-tions in many African cities. By this, Blunt and Varley (2004) admitthat attachment to hometowns or rural roots stems from deeppsychological, historical and socio-cultural experiences in theindividual and collective psyche of society. Trager (2001: 239)collaborates this view of the home in her Ijesa Yoruba, SouthwestNigeria study:

The home community continuous to be a source of identity,a place where one is known and where one’s reputation isimportant. But it is not enough to say that one is from a partic-ular place. Rather, a person is expected to act on the basis of thatidentity, to fulfil obligations to the hometown, to participate inorganisations and activities with others from the community,both those who live at home and others living outside.

Besides being regarded as a place of identity and recognition, theimagination of the home is bequeathed with such hospitableand reassuring sense of security e safe haven from other perceivedterritories of alienation, injustice, violence, and fear (seeChukwuezi, 2001; Uduku, 2002). Smith (2005) conceived this ‘placeof refuge’ mentality and the attendant rural-centric networks as‘legacies of Biafra’, referring to the post-Nigerian civil war adjust-ments. To him, “(t)he legacies and collective memories of Biafra arepowerful symbolic forces that energize the social construction ofIgbo identity” (Smith, 2005: 43).

Under such scenarios, certain commentators have wonderedif patriotism is not sacrificed on the altar of local fragmentaryaffiliations (see Cheshire & Woods, 2009; Trager, 2001: 235 forexample). Ené (2009), however, disagrees. He identifies this curiousattachment to one’s rural roots with an incipient form of nation-alism, ‘natural nationalism’ (after Boixeda, 2002), which “focuseson the culture of a people regardless of prevailing political shade orspace. It is less like ethnic and more like cultural nationalism.”

(p. 1). Issues like these are still open questions but which areoutside the scope of the current discourse. What is quite certain,however, is the facts that among the Igbos of Southeast Nigeria,attachment to their rural home, and conformity to the roles andethics of indigenous institutions are highly structured, and do oftentranscend spatial boundaries (Nwosu, 2008). Thus, we see a meta-society of some sort where aspatial kinship and community tiesbind members in multilevel socio-cultural structures manifestingin extended family, kindred assembly, the village assembly clusters.Often, community natives (or indigenes) whether they are ‘home’or ‘abroad’2 residents, retain their kinship/community identity andmembership through the apparatuses of hometown unions, age-grade associations, and other socio-cultural organisations, making

2 These twin adverbs ‘home’ and ‘abroad’ are commonly used in very subjectiveterms to denote, respectively, persons, families or organisations that are basedwithin and outside the community in question. It is interesting to note that thelatter term (‘abroad’) does not necessarily clarify whether the ‘abroad’ person,family or organisation is based within the country, continent, or overseas.

CBOs are vital agents of rural development (see Chukwuezi, 2001;Nwosu, 2008).

There are however a number of obverse cases, where hometownassociations (or town unions), age grade groups, and other CBOsare (ab)used as platforms for selfish political aggrandisement(Beauchemin & Schoumaker, 2009), divisive political ranglings(Nwosu, 2008), and underhanded political lobbying or what Honeyand Okafor (1998: 140) have labelled ‘prebendal politics’. None-theless, in many cases it is often difficult to draw the line betweengovernment patronage, legitimate lobbying, and collusive practicesin a country like Nigeria, where “access to the resources of thestate and much of the rest of the economy come through ties ofpatronage, and patroneclient relations are incredibly important”(Smith, 2005: 39, italics is my addition).

Self-help community development

As a policy approach, self-help community development is over60 years old, having been first initiated and actively promoted by theUnited Nations at the end of World War II. In its classic publicationtitled, Social Progress through Community Development, the worldbody defines community development as “a process designed tocreate conditions of economic and social progress for the wholecommunity with its active participation and the fullest possiblereliance on community’s initiatives” (United Nations, 1955: 6).Perhaps, due to the practical nature of this subject, publications oncommunity development often concentrate on core project delivery/evaluation, and in general refrain from multiplying definitions.Accordingly, self-help initiatives represent the endogenous efforts ofthe local population, and contrasted to other interventions fromexogenous sources outside the community (Rothman, 2000). In hisanalysis of over 120 community projects across different countries,Jack Rothman (2000) isolated about seven factors favourable tocommunity development in most localities, as follows: (i) a baselineof capacity within the community (cohesive structure, leadershipand knowledge/skills); (ii) simple, specific tasks that are time-bound;(iii) small-scale andmodest projects; (iv) community commitment tothe project; (v) there is a common interest; (vi) the benefits aretangible; and (vii) benefits can be predicted to outweigh costs.

Multilateral partnership is crucial to community developmentprocess. Little wonder why von Etten (2002), in his study of low-income housing in Indonesia, conceived a newgenre of joint ventureamong government and its agencies, the private sector (both profitand non-profit organisations), and the community people (andtheir representatives). Obviously, this variant of Public-Private-Partnership (PPP), which he termed Public-Private-CommunityParticipation (PPCP) is appropriate to community development notjust because of its inclusiveness but also because of its approxima-tion of the reality in many non-Western societies. Furthermore, it isremarkable to notice how kinship/community ties are related to JackRothman’s 7-point conditions favourable for successful self-helpcommunity development projects. This is simply motivated by thestrong sense of identity that community imbues and the compelling“obligations to the hometown, to participate in organisations andactivities with others from the community, both those who live athome and others living outside” (Trager, 2001: 239).

In Nigeria, self-help community development is often seen asa direct response of many rural communities to ‘lack of governmentpresence’, a phrase that usually denotes pervasive poverty, shortageof employment, and inadequate or lack of basic infrastructure. Thisinforms the tendency of most, if not all, hometown or communitydevelopment associations to retain socio-economic development oftheir respective communities as the overriding goal(s) (Akinsorotan& Olujide, 2006; Chukwuezi, 2001). Akpomuvie (2010), in his ownassessment of self-help projects in about 10 communities in Ethiope

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East LGA (Delta State, Nigeria), substantiates this survivalist viewof self-help community development. Most of the projects are tar-geted at areas of critical community needs, the most prevalent ofwhich include: water supply projects, roads, educational facilities,markets/motor parks, civic centres, and health facilities. In onesense, the community people are frustrated by what they consideras ‘government neglect’ but in another, there is a sense of fulfilment(and even pride) in their own self-accomplishments.

Development policy direction: ‘Urban versus Rural’versus ‘Urban plus Rural’3

Michael Lipton (1977) initiated the first constructive attackagainst the urban-bias policies, which concentrated a dispropor-tionate share of national resources in cities to the alter neglect of thecountry-sides or rural areas. This critique gave vent to the ‘urban-bias-poverty’ paradigmwith the hallmark of attempting to associateurban bias with over-urbanization and underdevelopment, on theone hand, and rural neglect/exploitation, on the other (Timberlake &Kentor, 1983). Invariably, this gave rise to a bifurcation in policyperspective: the ‘pro-urban’ policy position that depicts the city asthe quintessential core or the ‘growth machine’ to ‘trickling down’development to the rural periphery, on the one side; and the usuallyagricultural-based ‘pro-rural’ policy pose that espouses ‘even orbalanced development’ as a way out of rural demise, on the other.With emerging ruraleurban ties and the consequent multipliereffect on rural economy, the latter view and, to a lesser extent, theformer have been seriously weakened (Lee-Smith & Stren, 1991;Simon, McGregor, & Nsiah-Gyabaah, 2004).

Today, we are witnessing the (re-)emergence4 of a third pathtermed the urbanerural linkages approach (UN Habitat, 2005).This policy/planning concept perceives the rural and urban areasas ‘both ends of the same human settlements continuum’ (signi-fying the syntax, ‘urban plus rural’ syntax) rather than as ‘mutuallyexclusive and competing’ entities locked in a see-saw tangle (itsequivalent ‘urban versus rural’) (UNDP, 1999: 86; Weliwita &Okpala, 2004). The basic rationale of this holistic approach whichspells out a new mandate for the planning discipline is aptlyexpressed by Anna Tabaijuka, until recently the Executive Directorof United Nations Human Settlement Programme (UN Habitat):

(t)he development problems of cities cannot be effectivelyaddressed by only concentrating efforts within cities themselvesbecause part of the problems is generated fromoutside the cities,that is from rural areas. In other words, development planningfor the cities must take a broader regional perspective and takeaccount of what is happening in rural areas (Tabaijuka, 2005: 1).

Basically, two vital elements of this fresh planning mandate are:(i) the vital bridging roles small-/medium-sized towns play in ruraleconomic empowerment and growth (Meagher, 2001; Pederson,1997, 2003; Weliwita & Okpala, 2004: 5); and (ii) transformationsand new initiatives to strengthen regional planning and promote

3 This subtitle was wholly borrowed from UN Habitat (1999: 86) because of itsvery graphic and apt depiction of policy/programme bifurcation as represented inthe old ruraleurban dispensation and the new-found harmony in the current ruraldevelopment approach(es).

4 To Detlef Kammeier (2005) the ruraleurban linkages approach is not a newpolicy agenda but one is re-emerging from ‘more than 30 years’ of developmentpolicy “mill”: In other words, a kind of old wine in new wine skin. He is, however,more optimistic of its prospects this time around. He posits that: “Although thetheme of ruraleurban linkages is old, and with it, the attempts at boosting smalland medium-sized towns in national development, the emerging new discussion ofthe old theme has a distinctly different ring because it holds new relevance andpromise” (p. 10).

inter-sectoral coordination in development programme interven-tion (UN Habitat, 2005; Weliwita & Okpala, 2004).

Although ruraleurban symbiosis or interaction has numerousbenefits, there are, nevertheless, some shortcomings or/and nega-tive impacts for the benefit of any policy intervention. Meagher(2001: 51) has x-rayed situations of unfair competition that occa-sionally arise between urban-based ‘opportunity snatchers’ andbudding rural entrepreneurs, which deprives the later of ‘majorityof new non-farm opportunities’ and investment openings in theirown very ‘backyards’. Another issue of rising concern is ‘absenteelandlordism’. The economic drain constituted by superfluous ruralhousing investments and the actual utility value of these mansionsthat are reserved for occasional use by their returnee-owners. Alliedto this, is the equally contested matter of whether these ‘circular’migrants or the retiring urban-based indigenes will ever settledown permanently in their hometowns. Contrary to the age-longassumption in ageing research, empirical studies have showna general decreasing tendency for retirees to return to their ruralroots (Chukwuezi, 2001; Onyebueke, 2008).

In the current era characterised by rapid transactions and flows ofpeople, capital, commodities, services, information, and knowledge,Murdoch (2000) has devised a network approach to rural studies.In envisaging this analytical concept, he believes that it will servea twofold function that “allows us to hold ‘inside’ and ‘outside’together within one frame of reference” (p. 417) In other words, onethat accounts for both internal (endogenous) and external (exoge-nous) factors that determine community make-up and dynamics.In linewith this (network) thinking, no human settlement, nomatterhow remote, can be considered as an island. Jonathan Murdoch’s(2000) work appears to define the line of fusion betweenruraleurbandevelopment and globalization studies. It dove-tails intothe ‘concept of cities in globalization’ developed by Beaverstock andTaylor (1999) which espouses that all human settlements e cities,towns and villages e are, oneway or the other, connected to a globalnetwork and flows involving people, capital, commodity, and infor-mation [For a treatise of global network connectivity from Africanperspective (see van derMerwe, 2004; Onyebueke, in press)]. Hence,inter-linkages between the local sub-networks implicated at thecommunity level and the effusive global city network are bothsymbolised and stimulated by international migration, remittances,international medical outreach programmes, and a number of otherexchanges. Interestingly, ruraleurban symbiosis exposes the lowerends of this dynamic global network. Let us then explore a typicalcase scenario of ruraleurban symbiosis in Southeast Nigeria.

RuraleUrban ‘Symbiosis’ in Southeast Nigeria

The South-easternpart of Nigeria constitutes the core of Igbo land,and ismade upoffive (5) States of Abia, Anambra, Ebonyi, Enugu, andImo (see Fig. 1). The sub-region shares a common language (withvarieties of dialects) and similar ethno-historic roots. The massiveoutward mobility of Igbo youths in pursuit of mainly trading occu-pation and non-farm activities is conceived in three un-successivedroves: initially, to the urban areas in Nigeria; and subsequently, toother parts of Africa, and then theworld (Chukwuezi, 2001). Outwardmigration coupled with occupational diversification are instigatedby, among other things, high population density and “land scarcitycoupled with poor soils have made farming difficult and unprofit-able” (Chukwuezi, 2001: 56; see also Okali, Okpara, & Olawoye,2001). The crucial role of hometown associations in communitydevelopment is not lost on the government. Ever since promulgationof the (old) Anambra State Edit No. 22 of 1986 that legitimized therural development activities of town unions and other communitydevelopment associations 1986, other State governments of South-east Nigeria have followed suit in succession.

Fig. 1. Map of Nigeria showing the Southeast Region.

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Case study selection and research methods

The original pilot survey, fromwhich this case study was drawn,took place between April 4 and June 15, 2010 in two rural commu-nities in Southeast Nigeriae Ajalli in Orumba North LGA of AnambraState and Achara in Obowo LGA of Imo State. A few constraints in thesurvey compelled us to set aside the Achalla data in favour of theAjalli segment, necessitating us to adopt a community profile patternin this paper. The studymade use of primary and secondary data, andthese were sourced from maps, publications, minutes of meetingsand documents of town union, personal observation, questionnairesurveys, and semi-structured (personal) interviews using key

informants. Whereas, 25 questionnaires were randomly distributed(but only 18 were returned) among the about 100 registeredmembers of the Ajalli Welfare Union, AWU, Enugu Branch (Men’swing), the interview surveys was more purposive in nature. Five (5)key interviewees were selected, who were either past or servingexecutives of AWU, and know the community and the variousdevelopment projectswell. The procedureswere generally hitch-freedue to the authors’ acquaintance with the study area, which made iteasier to clarify the respondents’ answers. These responseswere thencollated and analysed using simple tally methods.

Whereas the interview centred mainly on enumerating AWU-funded and e assisted projects in Ajalli, the brief questionnaire

Fig. 2. Sketch map of Ajalli.

5 Awka Division was one of the local administrative zones in the Eastern Regionunder the British Colonial government. It extends to Awka, Umunze, Igboukwu, andNri, encompassing a total area almost equivalent to the size of the current Anambra!

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sought to ascertain, among other things: the socio-economiccharacteristics of the respondents; their particular village unit(or Ọnụma); the frequency and reasons for hometown visits; thedate and reasons for belong to AWU and other community-basedorganisations such as the age grades; and list of notable develop-ment initiatives embarked by the union. Meanwhile, let us takea closer look at the Ajalli case study.

The Ajalli community: a case study

Location, place and people

Ajalli (or Ụjári in the native parlance) is the headquarters ofOrumba LGA in Anambra State. Its global geographical coordinatesare: Latitude 6�30000 North and Longitude 7�130000 East. It is a typicalIgbo community with a population of 12,763 (2009 projected)and has a total area of about 887.5 ha, indicating a relatively lowdensity of approximately 14 persons per hectare. Ajalli is strategi-cally located along the Umunze-Ekwụlọbia Federal Highway thatextends to the famous Nnewi Town. The community is composed offour ‘village’ units or Ọnụma, namely: Ọbinkpá, Ụmụevé, Ụmụa-biamá, and Amágu. The border communities are: Ufuma in theNorth and West, Nawfija in the South, and Akpu in the East. Like inother rural communities of its size and status, the settlementdistribution in Ajalli is a typical linear pattern with apparentnucleation around the commercial core called as Ogugé (see Fig. 2).

The reason for this precipitating aggregation or cluster is notfarfetched. The Ọgụgé commercial stripe is situated along the busy

Umunze-Ekwụlọbia-Nnewi Road, which invariably marks the mainentrance path into and exit from Ajalli community. Moreover, thisimportant road forms the main transit frame that interconnectsAjalli with a system of other villages, small- and medium-sizedtowns and cities in the sub-region (see Table 1) Other key facilitiesin this community core of include: the Orié market, the OrumbaNorth LGA Secretariat, the pre-eminent Ajalli Government(Primary) School, General Hospital, AWU-Goodness &Mercy HealthCentre, Customary (Magistrate) Court, Union Bank, Health Centre,INEC office, Divisional Police Station, St. Mark’s Anglican Church,and a retinue of businesses/retail shops. Situated about 800 m fromOgugé, is the major cultural hub of Ajalli, Ọgbụti-Ọti, where theancient giant split-wood gong, the Ikọrọ and the Palace of the lateEze Nwosu the VI are located.

The Ajalli people place very high premium on education as weshall see later from the prioritization of development projects(see Table 2). The renowned Ajalli Government School was estab-lished as far back as 1911 by British colonial administrators as theonly elementary school in the then Awka Division!5 This undoubt-edly provided the early boost to learning in the community that hasgiven rise to generation of highly educated people. Since then, manyother educational facilities in Ajalli like the Community SecondarySchool, and one or two private nursery/primary schools have also

Table 1Relative location of Ajalli to proximate urban centre.

Selectedproximate smalltowns & cities

2009Projectedpopulation*

Travel/Roaddistance (Km)from Ajalli**

Comment

Awka 88,493 27.4 Capital of Anambra StateEkwulobia 53,153 17.8 Small townEnugu 688,862 62.2 Capital of Enugu StateNnewi 90,362 40.1 Notable commercial and

industrial townOnitsha 389,761 59.6 Largest commercial city

in Southeast NigeriaUmunze 37,651 11.3 Small town

Source: **Nigeria Distance Calculator (www.distancecalculator.globefeed.com/Nigeria_Distance_Results; accessed October 12, 2010); *Projected 1991 PopulationCensus.

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sprung up. The community also benefited from the post-1979 phaseof rural electrification programme of the Federal government.Sources of water supply in the community are streams (Nkwá,Nwaẹfẹré, Afụrụ and Ishitá), springs (Ọgbaná Énụ), pond (Ogbá), aswell as boreholes, wells, and water tankers. Today, boreholesand public taps are predominant, and have drastically reduceddependence on these natural water sources.

Rural economic base and occupational diversification

The traditional sources of livelihood in the area are agriculture-related occupations: subsistence farming, goat and sheep herbing,palmwine tapping/trading, palm oil production, processing of garri,ákpụ and sliced cooked tapioca (local staple foods obtained fromcassava), and raffia crafts. The traditional commercial organ, theỌrié Market and numerous other retail stores/stalls do provide thebasic or lower-order goods and services needs of the community aswell as acting as linkages to other markets nearby, and to othersfurther afield.

Over the years, the community has recorded wide diversifica-tion in its occupational structure. High rate of ruraleurban migra-tion coupled with the steady influx of non-indigenous population(government workers, migrant labourer and construction workers)became evident after the community became the administrativecentre of Orumba North LGA in October 1992. Consequently, repairworks for electrical appliances, tailoring outfits, hairdressingsalons, restaurants or eating houses, auto/motorcycle mechanicworkshops, and all sorts of retail shops have sprung up to cater for

Table 2Circular visits to hometown: regularity, motive, and mode of transport.

Circular visits Frequency of response* Percentage (%)

Regularity of visitsWeekly 1 5.5Monthly 10 55.62e3 Monthly 6 33.36 Monthly 0 0Yearly 1 5.6

Reason(s) for visitsNuclear family member live in Ajalli 0 0Assistance/Care for ageing parents 9 32.1Extended family/community demands 8 28.6Meetings and social function 11 39.3Shear interest/recreational purposes 0 0

Common mode of transportPrivate vehicle 14 77.8Public transport 3 16.7

*In cases where multiple answers are supplied, the frequency of response is morethan N ¼ 18 but it becomes less when one or more answer(s) is (are) omitted.Source: Authors’ questionnaire survey, between April 4 and May 2, 2010.

the increasing population and diversifying needs (refer toChukwuezi, 2001; and Okali et al., 2001). Necessitated by ‘villagehouse’ (or ‘second home’) phenomenon, the local building industryis also thriving. Along with creating artisanal labour, this industryequally creates a huge multiplier effect on the local economy.

Hybrid administrative structure

Three distinctive institutionswith separate but often overlappingroles are discernible in the community, and they are: the OrumbaNorth local government council, the Eze and Eze-in-Council, and thePresident-General of Ajalli Welfare Union (AWU) (see Fig. 3).The emergent hybrid socio-political structure has given vent todiverse systems of authority and social control (Okereafọezeke,2002). The traditional stool, the Eze (and Eze-in-Council) exercisessome derived socio-cultural authorities through the 4 village units(orỌnụma) down to the 16 composite kindreds or Ụmụnnas and thenumerous family groups or Ngwụrụs (refer also to Okereafọezeke,2002). The Eze and his council also oversee the activities of 9subsisting Age Grades (Ekwụemé, Ọmeọkachie, Igwebụike, Njikọka,Ọganiru, Ofụọbi, Ajalli Amaka, Ụgwụmba, and Ụdo ka mma)6 andthose of the several masquerade cults and socio-cultural groups inthe village. The President-General of AWU and its Central ExecutiveCouncil, who are elected for two-year tenure, do oversee the entirecommunity self-help development efforts along with coordinatingthe affairs of the other 10 affiliate AWU branches. Whereas regularconsultations go on between the AWU Central Executives andthe Eze’s Cabinet, crucial matters or decisions often necessitate theconvening of the Ajalli Town Assembly or Ọgbakọ Ụjari. The powerrelation among these tripartite agencies of authority and develop-ment is very subtle and necessarily demands much inventiveness.

Circular migration, hometown associationand community development

The Ajalli Welfare Union (AWU) has 10 affiliate branches locatedin Aba, Abuja, Awka, Enugu, Jos, Lagos, Oko, Onitsha, Owerri, andPort Harcourt, not to mention a few sub- or pseudo-union groupsoverseas. Statutorily, it takes a minimum of ten (10) households/persons to constitute a branch withinwhich men and womenmeetseparately at least once a month under the separate segments orwings e AWU Men and Women wings respectively. Recurrentagendas of these meetings centre on the welfare of members aswell as on the interests and development of Ajalli community (referto Table 3). Apart from a number of discretionary levies, each city-branch contributes a basic annual due of ₦50,000 (about US $334 atthe subsisting exchange rate of $1 to ₦150) to the AWU CentralExecutive Council headed by the President General. (For example,our study revealed that the Enugu Branch of AWU is yet to offseta sum of about ₦250,000 (US $1667) levied by the Central Executiveto meet ongoing land-related lawsuits). Fund raising or generationis crucial to the proper functioning of hometown associations andso retention of membership and entitlements are frequentlypredicated on financial regularity. Membership dues range from₦600 to ₦1200 (approximately US $4 to $8) per annum thoughadditional funds are raised through levies and free-will donations.

As is the convention in all other communities in SoutheastNigeria, hometown associations are normally gender-delineated.

6 The nine current age grade groups in Ajalli listed in descending order based fromthe oldest to the youngest: Ekwueme (1934 and older), Omeokachie (1939e1935),Igwebụike (1944e1940), Njikoka (1948e1945), Oganiru (1953e1949), Ofuobi(1958e1954), Ajalli Amaka (1959e1964), Ugwumba (1967e1962), and Udo ka mma(1968e73).

gbako jári

P / Genera l & AWU Central Executive

AW U Branch

AW U Branch

AW U Branch

Um unna Um unna Um unna

Age Grade

Age Grade

Age Grade

Masquerades Groups & others

Èze jári & Èze-In-Counci l

(1 0) ( 16 )

(9 )

Fig. 3. Hierarchical structure of the traditional institutions in Ajalli, Southeast Nigeria.

Table 3Membership of hometown association: duration, motive, and other CBOs.

Membership of hometownassociation (AWU)

Frequency ofresponse

Percentage (%)

Duration of membership (years)<5 1 5.66e10 10 55.611e20 6 33.321e30 0 0>31 1 5.6

Main reason(s) for membershipDevelopment of hometown 9 50Associate or fraternise with kinsmen 3 16.7Community responsibility/duty 4 22.2Conventional customary practice 2 11.1

Source: Authors questionnaire survey, between April 4 and May 2, 2010.

O.U. Victor, E.N. Hope / Habitat International 35 (2011) 350e360 357

Activities of AWU Women’s wing is more or less equivalent to theMen’s Wing but they generally come to a climax in the month ofAugust during annual women retreats popularly known as AugustMeetings. This yearly retreat necessitates all Ajalli women (or‘daughters of Ujari’) to return home for about a week to socialize,plan, raise funds, and undertake one form of project or the other.The pilot survey results necessitated a deeper probe into circularmigratory and associational life of the people and how theseinterface with community development.

Socio-economic characteristics of respondentsThe mean age of the 18 respondents is about 48 years. Marital

status: 16 (or 88.9%) of themwere married, with only 1 (5.6%) eachbeing single and widowed. All the respondents have some form offormal education: 2 (11.1%) had primary school education, 4 (22.2%)attended secondary schools and 12 (66.7%) admitted to havingattained a tertiary level education. Most of this sample populationare self-employed 10 (55.6%) whereas 6 (33.3%) and 2 (11.1%) areemployed in the public and private sectors respectively.

Circular visit to hometown: regularity, motive,and mode of transport

The hometown is often the foremost rallying point of commu-nity alliance and individual allegiances. Yet, each person belongs toa village unit or Ọnụma to which he or she has some degree ofcommitment. The distribution of respondents according to villageunits is as follows: Amágu (3 or 16.7%); Ọbinkpá (11 or 61.1%);Ụmụevé (3 or 16.7%); andỤmụabiamá (1 or 5.6%). It is obvious fromTable 2 that these circular visits are quite frequent, and are usuallymotivated by, in their order of importance: meetings and socialfunctions; assistance and care for ageing parents back in the village;and extended family and community demands. One clear factwhich stands out here is that the rural-centric trends orchestratedby circular (ruraleurban) migration and the people’s associationallife (as mediated by their affiliation to hometown association) areboth culturally embedded and cherished values.

Membership of hometown association andother community-based organisations (CBOs)

A vast majority of the respondents have been members of AWUfor between 6 and 10 years (see Table 3). In answer to an open-ended question to state the compelling reason(s) for belonging tothe hometown association and other CBOs (age grades, kinshipgroup or Ụmụnna, etc.), members furnished the following reasons(in descending order of significance): for the development ofhometown (50%); community responsibility/duty (22.2%); to asso-ciate or fraternise with kinsmen (16.7%); and that such affiliationsare normal or conventional customary practices (11.1%). Summingthe pieces of evidence from Tables 2 and 3, we can ascertain(by induction) that circular migratory trends constitute some kind ofcompensatory mechanism that act to alleviate severe ruraleurbandevelopment imbalances. As regards the second research question(i.e., the extent to which hometown associations contribute to ruralcommunity development), our summations from the recent majorprojects in Ajalli wholly undertaken or facilitated by the Ajalli

Table 4Recent development projects in Ajalli, Orumba North LGA, Anambra State (Nigeria).

Sector Project Year/Mode of initiation & funding Maintenance & management Comment

Education Upgrading of communitysecondary school, Ajalli

Initiated and executed by AWU [One assemblyhall; one classroom block; one fully-equippedScience Laboratory Block (2005e2009)]

Anambra State SchoolManagement Board

Lack of teacher in mathematics and the coresciences in the Secondary School between2005 and 2009 caused AWU to hire andpayroll five additional instructors as astop-gap measure.

Health Medical centre (4 wards,2 theatres plus2 consulting rooms)

Built in 1995 by AWU in conjunction withthe Goodness & Mercy Foundation of SavannahHospital, Georgia State, USA. This medicalcentre accommodates the yearly MedicalMission initiated by the GMF (see Plate 1).

Community (AWU) andGoodness & MercyFoundation (GMF).

The founder and Chief Executive Officerof the Goodness & Mercy (established inOctober 2001) is an ‘illustrious son’ of Ajalliwho is a Cardiologist based in the UnitedStates of America. This programme hastreated well over 2,500 patients andsupplements the services of the other healthfacilities in the community.

Market Erection of lockup shopsat the Orie Market.

Initiated in March 2010 (still ongoing) byỤmụ Adá Ụjári (translated as ‘union of allAjalli daughters’, an umbrella organAWU women’s wing).

Community (AWU) andỤmụ Adá Ụjári.

The Ụmụ Adá Ụjári, the confederation of allthe Women’s groups in Ajalli also built theCommunity Civic Centre and plays supportiveroles in other project finance and executions.

Roads A two-kilometre roadfrom Umueve toUmuabiamaVillages of Ajalli.

Construction started in 2005 but the projectis still ongoing. It was initiated and is beingexecuted by AWU but with the philanthropicdonation of a wealthy indigene.

Community (AWU) andhopefully Orumba North LGA.

This kind of gesture is not new in thecommunity. In fact, road grading, resurfacingand construction through individualphilanthropic efforts are ‘reoccurringdecimals’ in the community’s history.

Security Ajalli Vigilante Corps. Formed and funded by AWU since 1999. Community (AWU) inconjunction with theAnambra State governmentfrom 2009.

It was not until 2009 that the AnambraState government took over the fundingof community vigilantes.

Water Four differentboreholes (one eachin the 4 villages).

Started and completed in 2005 by theprivate philanthropic initiatives of a fewcommunity members.

Community/the individualprovider

Prior to this segmental water provision therehad been failed attempts to realize a morecomprehensive Ụbeọkpọkọ and ỤhụanaỌbinikpá Water Piping Schemes hatched backin the early 1980s.

Source: Key Informant interviews and questionnaire survey, between April 4 and May 2, 2010.

O.U. Victor, E.N. Hope / Habitat International 35 (2011) 350e360358

Welfare Union (see Table 4; Plate 1) also clearly confirm an answerin the affirmative. We shall then consider the response(s) of urbanand regional planning to this new planning mandate in theconcluding segment.

Discussion and conclusion

Understanding the symbiotic connections between the urbanand rural areas has great potentials of extending our knowledge of

Plate 1. Contented patients in Ajalli Health Centre: local women village receivingspecialized from American doctors and health workers. Source: www.goodnessand-mercyfoundation.org: used with permission.

the human settlement dynamics, its processes, and determinantfactors. Conception of human settlement as a continuum ratherthan as discrete urban, rural, and peri-urban spaces will enrichthe planning profession generating more complementary andcomparative lessons (Afshar, 1994), and in the course of time makeurban and regional planning live up to its compound-name! More-over, the daunting challenges confronting human settlement in the21st Centurye rapid urbanization, global poverty, crime and terror,climate change, and natural disasters, to mention the major ones ehave raised calls to reinvent the urban planning profession in waysthat will make it more proactive, adaptable, sustainable, andpeople-centred (CAP, 2006; Watson, 2009). The phenomenon ofruraleurban linkages has added a new layer to the conventionalurban planning discourse, a reality that promises, perhaps in part,to fulfil Vanessa Watson’s (2009, p. 2261) dream of “widening thescope of planning thought from outside the global heartland whereit has its origin e i.e. a view from the global South.” By advancingthe ruraleurban linkages approach, ‘theoretical’ policy conceptionseems to be coming to terms with the lived experiences of thecountless ‘urban-villagers’ in many developing countries, who e toborrow Gugler and Flanagan’s (1978: 64) phrase e “operate ingeographically separate but culturally and economically integratedsystems.”

Experiences from both literature and the case study region doclearly indicate that rural-centric trends orchestrated by circularmigration and self-help project initiatives have significant impacton community development and poverty reduction. An additionalproof of this association is also provided by a longitudinal povertystudy in Nigeria (see Table 3). Notwithstanding diverse fluctuationsin the incidence of poverty in Nigeria between 1980 and 1996(rising by about 64% between 1980 and 1985, dropping marginally(%) between 1985 and 1992, and climbing again (54%) in the1992e1996 period), the Southeast, a sub-region with well

Table 5Incidence of poverty in Nigeria (selected years).

Geo-politicalzones

Percentage of poor people in total population

1980 1985 1992 1996

(NATIONAL) 28.1 46.3 42.7 65.6Northeast 35.6 54.9 54.0 70.1Northwest 37.7 52.1 36.5 77.1North Central 32.2 50.5 46.0 64.3Southeast 12.9 30.4 41.0 53.5Southwest 13.4 38.6 43.1 60.9South Central 13.2 45.7 40.8 58.2

SECTORSUrban 17.2 37.8 37.5 58.2Rural 28.3 51.4 46.0 69.3

Source: Nigeria: Poverty Reduction Paper e National Economic Empowerment andDevelopment Strategies. IMF Country Report No. 05/433, Dec., 2005, p. 57.

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accentuated community development tradition, consistentlymaintained the lowest poverty rates (Table 5) (often below thenational average)!7.

It is in recognition of the functional and socio-economicbenefits of these ‘rural-centric’ trends that communities areadvised to capitalise on these linkages by redirecting attentionfrom prestige- or image-fetching projects to more productive andemployment-generating ones (Chukwuezi, 2001). It is certainlyfor the same and other related reasons that in future urban andregional planning is likely to shift more towards more contiguousand contextual approaches to handling human settlement chal-lenges. Put in another way, urban and regional planning willexpectedly swing towards, to use the UN Habitat (1999: 86)syntaxes, the ‘urban plus rural’ postures, and away from ‘urbanversus rural’ equivalents.

In any case, many aspects of ruraleurban linkages still need tobe better understood. How do dual-identity traits and hometownallegiance vary between individuals and communities? Dothey wane and wax with time and changing circumstances? Doesallegiance to one’s hometown, itself a major stimulant of self-helpdevelopment, vitiate one’s interest and participation in his orher neighbourhood/city of abode? These and some of the otherknotty issues connected with trans-locality and dual-identity stillremain largely unexplored, even though they form part and parcelof everyday life in African cities. For an illustration, we referto a clever comment made about one and half decades ago byDim Chukwuemeka Ojukwu, the Oxford-educated and erstwhileleader of the botched Biafran Secession, to compliment a fellowconference presenter who had spoken before him8. The IkembáNnewi (Ojukwu’s traditional title) mounted the podium and aftera brief eulogy drew a thunderous applause when he closed withthe terse remark: “As a gentleman I duff my cap for you but asa chief I put it back.”

Acknowledgement

The authors are grateful to Dr Ben-Jack Nwankwo, the currentChairman of Ajalli Welfare Union (AWU) Enugu Branch and Mr.

7 Although the correlations between local investment/community projects andpoverty reduction cannot be denied, the authors, however, admit that the allusionto the cited poverty dataset is indicative and not necessarily conclusive. This isparticularly for the want of deductive analysis and several component variables notbrought into the picture here.

8 It was the occasion of the ‘�Nkpokọ Ndi Igbo’ Conference (translated literally as‘Igbo General Assembly’) that held at the Cinema Hall of Hotel Presidential, Enuguon the 7th of October, 1994.

Daniel Okeke, the President-General of Achara Progressive Union fortheir helpful support during the pilot survey. We also acknowledgewith gratitude the perceptive criticisms and insightful suggestions ofthe anonymous reviewer(s), which helped to improve the structureand quality of the earlier draft. We however take responsibility forany remaining error(s).

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