CHAPTER ONE
1.0  INTRODUCTION
1.1       BACKGROUND OF THE STUDY
The importance of housing in human history cannot be overemphasized. Housing is seen as one of the best indicators of a person’s standard of living and of his or her place in society (UNCHS, 1993). Furthermore, Venkatarama (2004) is of the view that housing and building conditions also reflect the living standards of a society. Thus, the importance of access to adequate and affordable housing took the front burner in the mid 20th century. The low-income group whose population is on the increase due to rapid urbanization and population growth evidently became the most vulnerable in terms of lack of access to decent and affordable housing in developing countries. This has led to various researches into development of locally available building materials and construction techniques to enhance access to housing for all.
In 1976, the Human Settlements conference in Vancouver gave new impetus to this approach, condemning the transposition of Western building techniques for low-cost housing and recommending the design of technologies suited to climatic, social and cultural contexts (Rigassi, 1985 cited in Alagbe, 2008). The conference also recommended the gradual reduction of imports of products and services linked to construction, and the drawing up of norms and regulations which covered the basic needs of end-users whilst taking account of their economic possibilities.
The acquisition of local building materials and techniques to guarantee access to decent and durable housing for all by the year 2000 was adopted in December 1988 by the General Assembly of the United Nations with the slogan “Global Strategy for Housing to the year 2000”. The Assembly proposed relying on a vast formal and informal private sector participation in housing provision. This strategy was aimed at removing the dependence on the public sector for housing provision by exploring the erstwhile ignored wealth of existing human resources and their building cultures and social dynamics (UNCHS, 1993).
The building culture of pre-independence Nigeria was an absolute dependence on earth building techniques such as use of adobe bricks (sun-dried bricks) and wattle and daub (mud wall construction). These techniques were predominant in major rural and semi-urbanized towns and cities in Nigeria. These techniques were durable, adequate and accessible enough for them to meet their housing needs. The techniques were also sustainable since they do not deplete the natural resources of the environment neither do their production processes lead to the emission of gases that causes global climate change.
However, post-independence rural centres in Nigeria acquired new status as a result of independence on October 1, 1960. This period was immediately followed by the “oil boom” of the 1970 and 1980 which brought about an unprecedented prosperity and development of the nation. There were massive improvements on infrastructural development particularly in state capitals and major cities and towns. Thus, the towns became increasingly urbanized and became an urban-oriented society. The crave for Western building techniques led to the gradual extinction of the erstwhile earth building techniques. Thus, while other countries were developing various earth building techniques to meet the housing needs of their populace, the technique became associated with the poor in Nigeria and not fashionable for housing purposes.