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City as Habitat; Assembling the Fragile City

The African continent is urbanizing at a breakneck pace and our cities are in a state of crisis. The causes may vary, so also is the degree of severity, but there is a widely felt sense of urban problems requiring urgent solutions. The nature of the problems is complex, with economic, social, educational, political and physical factors playing major roles in exacerbating the situation. Yet, whatever is perceived to be the most serious physical problems in a city, one key underlying question always present is: What can be done about the disaffection of people for their own urban environments? This issue of fragility may be seen in simple terms of a drop in the perceived desirability of the city as a place one can to live, work or shop in. Whatever the name, the fact is that too many Nigerian cities are becoming unattractive to many citizens and residents. This paper aims at identifying the various ways of assembling a fragile city. Through the review of existing literature, the paper highlights the causes of city fragility focusing on three Nigerian cities. It also discusses fragility as the main hurdle to implementing Sustainable Development Goals and how fragile situation birth architecture of fear. Then, it concludes by noting that developing nations in sub-Saharan Africa, including Nigeria need to be proactive in deconstructing their fragile cities.


Introduction
One of the most drastic demographic changes in human history is the sheer pace and scale of urbanization in recent times. The global population that resides in cities is more than half. According to Muggah [1], the speed and extent of the urban revolution is spellbinding. Available statistics indicates that in the early 1800s only about 3 percent of the world's population lived in cities as compared to over 50 percent today. In the 1950s there were just 83 cities with over one million people and only three megacities. However, in 2015, at least 500 cities have population figures above one million, with over 28 megacities having ten million or more dwellers. Currently, there are over 4,000 cities with population of more than 100,000 inhabitants within the different geographical location in the world, providing homes to over 4 billion persons but only 600 of the cities account for more than two thirds of the global gross domestic product. Among the latter are 34 megacities that provide home to one-fifth of humanity. It is also observed that the greater part of future urbanization will be concentrated not in hyper or megacities, but in small and medium-sized cities in low and medium-income countries in Asia and Africa. The future geography of security and development will be marked by little known and insignificant cities. More surprising is the fact that the global slum population will increase from 1 billion to 2 billion people by 2040 [1]. This suggests that there are tremendous opportunities in these fast-growing settings, but there are also unsettling risks associated with this.
With the direction of urban population growth shifting dramatically, it is challenging to discern with certainty in this 21st century where and why cities will falter and/or fail. Predicting which cities will thrive and survive is even more difficult but what is certain is that, unprecedented urbanization will be a decisive factor in its success or failure. To put in simple terms: the fight for future security and development will be won or lost in the metropole.
Having an estimated 66 percent of the world's population projected to reside in urban areas by 2050, the concentration of people and assets in vulnerable, disaster-prone and conflict-affected areas presents a peculiar development challenge for cities [2]. Addressing complex challenges such as climate change in conflict-affected urban contexts requires new thinking on how to mitigate risk by strengthening institutional capacity, taking into consideration the localized and dynamic context of conflict and fragility. Smith (2017) believed that by 2050, around 56 percent of the global population in fragile and conflict-affected states will be living in cities, an increase of over 20 percent compared to the year 2000. Also, in the last 40 years, the urban population in lower income and fragile countries has increased by a whopping 326 percent [2].
For the first time in history, more people live in urban settlements than outside of them [3]. The concentration of people, power, and wealth in cities creates many possibilities for tackling some of the world's most pressing problems. At the same time, urban areas are on the frontline of challenges that range from climate change and extreme poverty to multiple layers of violence and pandemics. Sprawling shantytowns of developing world are host destination for Africans and Asians who flock-in in their numbers. Studies have it that most of the population growth in decades to come will occur not in North America and Western Europe's urban centres, but in the urbanizing cities and slums of Africa and Asia. Only three countries namely China, India and Nigeria will account for 40 percent of global population growth over the next decade [1]. It indicates that People are not just moving to cities: cities are coming to them.
According to Udeh and Okeke (2018) [4] one of the critical problems facing the Nigerian cities has been that of deteriorating living conditions leading to increased death rate and diseases caused by pollution and poor sanitation. With these happenings, Nigeria has found itself in the league of unstable nations owing to the facts that most of her major cities including Kano, Lagos, Kaduna, Aba, Abuja, Jos, Enugu, Maiduguri, Oyo, and Onitsha etc. are gradually showing signs of fragility, instability and underdevelopment creating a disaffectionate situation for the inhabitants. These urban nodes of instability have implications for poverty and inequality reduction. Some security experts believe that so-called 'feral cities' and their sprawling slums will serve as future landscapes of national unrest, civil conflict and urban insurgency. In view of the foregoing, this paper examines the various ways of addressing the issue of fragility of cities with a view to suggesting how to improve the liveability of Nigerian cities. Specifically, the paper explores the opportunities Nigerian cities have to develop into a "smart" resilient city in the face of complex picture of environmental, political and social pressures. It also identifies the strategy or approach that can be used to drive sustainable urban growth in the midst of not only conventional urban development problems of poor infrastructure, service delivery and limited formal sector employment opportunities, but also with recurrent patterns of intercommunal and religious conflicts, corrupt elitism and violent extremism.
The rest of this paper is organized as follows. Section 2, is basically the review of existing literature on the subject matter of fragility, its dimensions and character. Presented in Section 3 is the research methodology and case study areas. Also establishing the research methodology flowchart. Section 4, is the presentation of the results from the studied cities and Fragile States Index report. Section 5, several issues are discussed in this section through analysis of the findings. This section explains how fragility hinders implementation and attainment of Sustainable Development Goals. Finally, Section 6 concludes the paper with recommendations.

The Concept of Fragility
Fragility has resonated in global public policy-making since the turn of the millennium [5]. Considered as constituting the 'source of many of the world's most serious problems' [6] Fragility has also been perceived as a hydra-headed monster to global stability and peace. The review of existing literature indicates that there is no internationally agreed definition of fragility in urban context or a fragile state. However, the concept has been evolving throughout the last two decades through research and practice with added factors and levels of analysis to become an all-encompassing and hyper-aggregated concept, which is both politically problematic and analytically unhelpful [7]. The concept strives to marry together issues of development and security. But it has led to a variety of fragile state agendas of international donors, and a lack of consensus on priorities and strategies [8].
According to African Development Bank High Level Panel on Fragile States [9], fragility is seen as a "risk inherent in the development process itself" and that comes about "when [pressures] become too great for national institutions and political processes to manage". The Asian Development Bank [10] defined fragility as "a state's failure to perform its function effectively and to provide basic social services, such as health, education, security; incapacity to uphold the rule of law; and failure to provide sustainable sources of income for the population to get out of poverty". In the same vein, the OECD [11] reports that "a fragile region or state has weak capacity to carry out basic governance functions, and lacks the ability to develop mutually constructive relations with society. Again, the UK Department for International Development, (DFID) [12] defined fragile states as "those where the government cannot or will not deliver core functions to the majority of its people, including the poor. They noted that the most important functions of the State for poverty reduction are territorial control, safety and security, capacity to manage public resources, delivery of basic services, and the ability to protect and support the ways in which the poorest people sustain themselves." The recent OECD views on fragility establish a more intricate and multidimensional phenomenon. In their seminal report series on the topic 'States of Fragility', they note that fragility is the combination of exposure to risk and insufficient capacity of the state, system and/or communities to manage, absorb or mitigate those risks [13]. It can lead to negative outcomes including violence, the breakdowns of institutions, displacement, humanitarian crises or other emergencies [14]. While still conceptualizing fragility as a state-or country-level phenomenon, the OECD expands on the World Bank Country Policy and Institutional Assessment by focusing on forms of fragility, which affect economic, environmental, political, security and societal domains [15]. Their estimates indicate that by 2030, 80% of the global poor will live in contexts affected by one or more of these drivers of fragility [15]; many stable and prosperous environments that fall into the middle-income country bracket are included in this estimate [14]. As opined by Ziaja et al. (2019) [16] the concept of fragility provides new impetus for two ideas that had been somewhat neglected: the interdependence between the three core functions of the state (i.e. violence control, implementation capacity, and empirical legitimacy), and the systematic comparison of how states deal with this interdependence. There are indications of increasingly wide and diverse use of the concept of fragility as an explanatory factor in global discussions including health sector etc.
From the foregoing definitions, it can be inferred that fragility is a state of limited institutional capacity and weak governance in the delivery of basic services to the citizens. Put succinctly, fragility occurs when city authorities are unable or unwilling to provide citizens with basic services. It is elicited by a rupture of a city's social contract with the citizens and inhabitants

Dimensions of Fragility
It can be said from the above definitions presented in this paper that city fragility occurs in urban areas that are failing, or in danger of failing, with respect to authority, comprehensive access to basic services, and or governance legitimacy. It implies that cities can be fragile in one or two of these dimensions, but rather few in all three, and there is a causal connection among these dimensions. These three dimensions are elaborated in Figure 1.   It seems plausible that these failures are causally linked. For example, the absence of authority would make service delivery difficult, while failures in authority and service delivery are likely to reduce a State's legitimacy. Conversely, the lack of civil liberties and political rights (lack of legitimacy) may result in conflict and failed authority.

Urban Fragility
The scholar Muggah (2014) defines fragile cities as "discrete metropolitan units whose governance arrangements exhibit a declining ability and/or unwillingness to deliver on the social contract with the people [17]." More generally, urban fragility can be seen as the extent to which the urban systems are susceptible to damage incurred by shocks, with urban systems including not only infrastructure and ecological systems but also social, economic, and political systems. While some shocks, such as floods, can affect whole metropolitan areas, regardless of the affluence of its inhabitants, others, such as criminal violence or lack of public services, may impact more the poor and disadvantaged populations. Security, development, and governance capacity may not be uniformly distributed across urban areas. Therefore, there is a spatial dimension of urban fragility, as socio-economic and political conditions determine the degree of fragility experienced by each urban resident.
According to the Independent Commission on Multilateralism [7] nearly 1.2 billion people live in fragile cities, including one-third of the world's poor. These fragile cities are vulnerable to internal and external shocks, including armed conflicts. Of the world's thirty-seven armed conflicts recorded in 2011, more than 20 were in fragile States. The key challenges emerging from fragile states, such as transnational threats, regional spillovers, local insecurity and under-development are beyond the capacity of local authorities and States but require the attention of multilateral institutions. This is because many of them transcend beyond national boundaries and requires concerted efforts to deal with.

Character of a Fragile City
It is known that the fastest growing cities often lack centralized planning or evenly distributed services. The boundaries dividing inner cities, suburbs, peripheries and slums are fast becoming blurred as it benefits a narrow bandwidth of elites while excluding the critical mass of the citizens and residents. Security is often expressed as a form of repression from above, or as resistance from below. Figure 2 shows the basic character of fragile cities.

Figure 2. The Basic Character of a Fragile City
Examination of Figure 2 reveals that at the epicentre of vulnerability is the fragile city. The three vices of urban poverty, violence and disaster within the city fabrics will play a dominate role that will result to an unstable setting and impact on the condition of fragility. According to the World Bank's list of fragile cities [18], fragile cities represent some of the poorest, most violent, and most disaster-prone countries in the world. As population aggregates in cities at a rapid pace, it is possible that their governments' ability to deliver services, provide security, respond to disasters and effectively govern will be pushed to the threshold. Projected to continue with these growth rates, what is certain is that tomorrow's humanitarian crisis will be more urban than rural, and the urban centres of poverty and conflict-affected countries will be the world's most vulnerable zones.

Research Methodology
The methodology adopted for this study is a systematic review of related literature on fragility. It utilized both primary and secondary sources of data. The primary data were derived from anecdotal evidences and authors' observations and previous research works on sustainable urban development in the 21 st century. The secondary data were obtained from the review of published literature identified in various sources including, journals, workshops and conference papers. Papers reviewed were identified via searchers on online databases such as Google scholar, and Science Direct among others. Using a random sampling technique 3 cities in Nigeria namely Enugu in the east, Kano in the north and Lagos in the west, were selected and analysed based on the dimensions of fragility. The data used for this were derived from published literature and direct observations by the authors. Specifically, data drawn from the Fragile States Index Annual Report on Nigeria was used as the basis for the analysis. Result of the analysis was presented and conclusion was drawn with recommendations made on how to address the challenges associated with fragile cities.

Study Area
Nigeria is a West African country and has a diverse geography, with climates ranging from arid to humid equatorial. The most populous black nation on the Globe with it most diverse feature as its people. Colonized by the British, the country has abundant natural resources, notably large deposits of petroleum and natural gas. Made up of 36 states with the Federal Capital Territory, it has 774 Local Government Area. Below is the country's geographical map showing the study locations.

Results
Most of the World's largest slums are located in Africa with a slum population of approximately 195.5 million which is 61% of its urban population; Nigeria on the other hand, has the 9th largest urban population in the world and is home to some of the largest slums in the region [19]. It has seven cities with more than a million people, 80 cities with between 100,000 and 1 million people, and 248 cities with between 10,000 and 100,000 people [20]. The Fragile States Index (FSI; formerly the Failed States Index) annual report published by the United States think tank Fund for Peace and the American Magazine Foreign Policy placed Nigeria on red alert on fragile State from 2005 to 2013 as shown in Figure 6.

Literature review
Perceived problem  For many citizens, the government lacks legitimacy as has been expressed publicly;  With little resilience, the nation's economy is vulnerable to shocks, as cost of living keeps skyrocketing;  The high level of security threat from organised non-state violence and other religious sect;  Deep divisions within the society as 'one Nigeria' are only professed verbally without any sign of serious commitments in this direction;  The environment for foreign and private investments is unattractive and not favourable.
To buttress the foregoing points, three Nigeria cities namely Lagos, Enugu and Kano are further here analysed as follows.

Lagos
Lagos is Nigeria's largest city and it's still growing at a very fast rate. The population of Lagos is predicted to increase by an astonishing 77 people every hour between 2010 and 2030. This is according to United Nations data [21] as presented in Figure 7. This population dynamic makes Lagos the fastest-growing city in Africa. Strong economic growth, led by an oil boom, has driven the rural poor towards the city, and the population surge is also being driven by high birth rates and the return of Nigerians living abroad.

Figure 7. Africa's fastest-growing cities
Seventy-seven people an hour, which is 1,848 people a day, or 12,946 a week, or 56,179 a month roughly the equivalent of the entire population of Greenland moving into Lagos every month. The big question is whether Lagos's urban infrastructure can keep pace with the rising demand and deepening pressure. Already there are obvious challenges of epileptic power supply, a huge housing deficits amounting to over 5 million housing units with proliferation of slums, high crime rate and a very transport system that is in comatose. Of course these features are very common in many Nigerian cities because rapid population growth has continued to put strain on scarce urban resources.

Enugu
Enugu is a city in south-eastern Nigeria and the capital city of Enugu State. The city, which is dominantly populated by people of the Igbo ethnic group, is a medium-size, but rapidly growing urban centre [22]. It has witnessed immense growth in the size of built-up areas, increasing number of immigrants coming into the city, transportation and commercial activities since it became the capital of the Eastern Region after Nigeria's independence in 1960. The city has also attracted both foreign investors and private developers and since then, has consequently, retained its old status as the regional, industrial and business hub as well as the political capital and rallying point of the Igbo people [23]. The city had a population of 722,664 in 2006 and ranked 9 th most populous city according to the 2006 Nigerian census [24] and 968,300 in 2016 as projected by the National Population Commission of Nigeria. With the current rate, it is estimated that the population of Enugu will continue to grow unabated. Located in the Benue trough and the Cross River basin, it has the best developed coal and this is the reason for its geopolitical significance.
Enugu is characterized by administrative occupation due to the presence of colonial administrative headquarters, state government and the local government seats of authority and believed to be a greener pasture for many rural dwellers seeking a better standard of living. This has encouraged rural-urban drift in favour of the city. However, Fulani herdsmen insurgence and the kidnappings in the land have compounded the city's insecurity challenges. One is tempted to wonder if Enugu is on the verge of collapsing. In most recent times, there have been reported cases of farm land being destroyed, children abducted, innocent citizens massacred, women raped and intimidated. According to Sonnie [25], kidnappers have overrun different Nigerian communities especially in Enugu State, killing, raping and maiming their victims. The menace of Fulani herdsmen in Enugu can be recounted in locations like Nkpologwu-Nimbo, Udi, Atakwu community, Egede near the 9th Mile Corner, Agbani-Ugbawka, Nchatacha-Nike, Igogoro and Isiugwu Enugu Ezike. The fact remains that, Fulani herdsmen have made many Nigerian cities, towns and villages unsafe and insecure to live and work in with their kidnapping and murderous activities. Uncountable Nigerian citizens have reportedly been kidnapped in recent times [25].
The abduction sagas are indeed a big national tragedy. How did the city get to this sorry state? Why are herdsmen succeeding in overrunning our cities and communities? The answer is simple: failure of leadership. The failure/refusal/gross negligence of the government to tackle the menace at the onset has metamorphosed into an uncontrollable wild fire; who knows what the fragile situation will result to in the future.

Kano
Kano is a city within Kano State in northern Nigeria. It is both the north's commercial nucleus and Nigeria's second largest city. In 1952 the population stood at 127,000 inhabitants and rose to 1.5 million in 1991 and 2,828,861 in 2006 and projected to grow to over 4 million in 2016. On basic amenities, the housing situation is worst for the urban poor, who are compelled to live in dehumanizing environments due to the high cost of decent accommodation [26]. With an estimate of 43.5% of the state's population living in urban area, Kano has been the main centre of trade and commerce, particularly for leather, textile, agro-processing and plastic manufacturing. However, the economy has been on the decline over the past decade. Unemployment is approximately 25% and the drivers of this decline according to Smith [2] are partly due to failing and insufficient infrastructure and a number of persistent and compounding risks, such as extreme weather variation, flooding, disease epidemics, drought and communal clashes.
The Boko Haram insurgency has intermittently targeted Kano and devastated much of the north-east of Nigeria, including the cities of Bauchi and Maiduguri, in Bauchi and Borno State respectively. This has challenged the ability of local authorities to ensure security within urban confines, worsening an already fragile situation. There is evidence that the insurgency has resulted from a decrease in social resilience arising from the loss of livelihoods linked to environmental degradation and, in particular, the shrinkage of Lake Chad. This only emphasizes the significance of building financial, social and environmental resilience in order to promote growth and stability.

Discussion
From the above findings, it can be deduced that the management of urban crime and violence has become a key public policy issue of our time due to the ongoing migration to cities; the happiness and quality of life of citizenry -(their health, education, and personal safety) depends on getting that right. Uncontrolled urban growth is malevolently aiding cities to fragility and risk of becoming failed cities in Nigeria as seen is the geometric rise of Lagos city population of 77 new entrants per hour. Lagos urban infrastructure is put under continuous pressure resulting to deteriorating physical environment and proliferation of slums. Again, in some district and settlements in Enugu particularly Obiagu, Gariki and Abakpa areas, certain slum neighbourhoods and shantytowns have assumed and adopted the character of forbidden gang and crime zones far beyond the jurisdiction or control of internal security forces. These zones of exclusion are outside the actual control of formal authorities and within them, a large number of risk factors are believed to aggravate urban violence and fuel the vicious cycles that restrict outward and upward mobility. Fear grips the resident who does not know when the hoodlums may strike again. Subsequently, Kano has had its own share of Nigeria's fragility as urban disasters have destroyed homes, markets, worship centres, public infrastructures and utilities. Economic fortunes wrecked in a minute, many rendered homeless and lives lost as a result of terrorism and threats to terrorism [27].
Other major cities in Nigeria like Onitsha, Kaduna, Abuja, Abeokuta, Owerri, Aba, are tilting to a precarious situation. All media houses and the Press, broadcasts one form of violence or criminal offence daily. The standard of living keeps dwindling and crude means of sustenance are taking center stage. This can be seen in the manner and cruelty at which daily business and lives activities are executed. The cityscape keeps decaying with widespread lawlessness. However, in certain cities, slums are often less dangerous than commonly presumed. Yet, irrespective of the evidence, many intermediate and high-class residents feel compelled to erect gigantic and elaborate walls with more sophisticated security systems to shield themselves, from violence and bandits giving rise to a dualistic cityscape of "violent" slums and "safe" gated communities.
In these cities, the existent and perceived urban disorder and instability mutually reinforce each other to create what is known as "architecture of fear." The outcome is a progressive public space fragmentation, a breakdown of social cohesion by generating new forms of spatial segregation and social discrimination.
The Architecture of fear according to Ellin and Blakely (1997) [28] explains the ways in which the contemporary landscape is shaped by our cities,' preoccupied with fear, as apparent in home design, security systems, gated communities, semi-public spaces (shopping malls, theme parks, casinos, and office atriums), zoning regulations, and cyberspace. This fixation also manifests itself in efforts to provide safety in public parks, but control the problem of homelessness. The demerit is that it is architecture of fear and its character is to ward off invaders. The potent for psychological peace may not exist within the occupants, inhabitant may feel dissatisfaction with their urban environment and tourist may seem unwelcomed with the site of the environment.
However, the recent height of insecurity has brought about the need for solution in city planning and architecture [27]. Architecture and county planning approach to design through its elements of planning namely; functionality, aesthetics, safety, convenience and economy has heightened the tenets of post modernism. What this means is that architecture can approach the defensive capability in buildings without bearing a sense of tension on the occupants and built environment psychologically.

Fragility, the Main Hurdle to Implementing SDGs
The 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) are much broader and more detailed than the previous and old Millennium Development Goals. Moreover, the SDGs cover a wide range of political and economic issues including environment, poverty, inequality, hunger, housing, health, employment, education, climate and energy. It is more than just an aspiration list for pursuing the vision of progress encapsulated in goal 16, which aimed at "promoting equitable, peaceful and inclusive societies" across the world. Undeniably, the theme of inclusiveness runs through almost all of the SDGs that focus on national-level challenges. Therefore, the SDGs reflect the fact that addressing exclusion and overcoming inequality in their different forms is the greatest problem facing human societies today and the major challenge of community development. Below is the average performance index of Nigeria in attainment of the SGDs.

Figure 8. Nigeria SDG Index and Dashboards Report 2019
Nigeria ranks 43 out of 52 countries with a score of 47.03% which is very poor. From the Figure above, it can be deduced that much attention and progress has being made to SDG13 (climate action) followed by SDG 12 (responsible consumption and production) and SDG 15 (life on land). However, SDG 9 (infrastructure), SDG 10 (reduced inequalities) and SDG 11 (sustainable cities and communities) face great difficulties. This is an indication of how the fragile situation in Nigeria has effects on implementing the SDGs. On a closer analysis, one would discover that this challenge borders on infrastructure (basic service delivery), reduced inequality (social justice) and sustainable cities (urban poverty and violence). According to Seth [29], "the SDGs are a bold attempt to set the development agenda for the next 15 years, but they are just goals; the challenge will be in implementation and fragile states will be the hardest places. Without an improved understanding of their structural deficits, and an agenda of deliberate and targeted innovation, the UN's goals will remain dead letters in these States". The SDGs set targets and benchmarks with little regard for country starting conditions and the political dynamics responsible for their progress. The lack of social cohesion and political stability needed to tackle the systemic exclusion and poverty that keep them unstable and underdeveloped, with their peculiar challenges which are likely to be the largest obstacle to implementation if not addressed. Fragile cities are perhaps far from attaining the SDG's dream of change and are likely to face the longest path to get there. The global society is diverging gradually into two groups  Cities robust enough to maintain order and promote development;  Cities too fragile to do either.
Though, none of the SDGs take this widening gap into account, instead, generally, everything the development community and the SDGs seek to accomplish assume that cities have overcome fragility or within the shortest time will become so. On a global scale, despite considerable amounts of aids, change in fragile cities remains elusive because cities in Nigeria, South Sudan, Yemen, Iraq and Pakistan have not been able to alter its ingrained exclusive dynamics. They are continually plagued by limited social cohesion, exclusive growth, poor governance and meagre infrastructural development. While more robust cities minimize violence and poverty, probably making significant progress towards SDGs, fragile cities are likely to remain behind. Already, they account for one-fifth of the world's population and two-fifths of global poverty is concentrated within their borders [29]. It is expected that this proportion will increase to two-thirds by 2030.

Way Out of Fragility
City fragility is not permanent. Guatemala is a good example of positive cases of highly fragile city that became stable in future. This requires a dual approach that involves the ruling political seat with the international bodies and most importantly the built environment Professionals. The solution starts with a clear plan and an enlightened leadership. It often necessitates successive government to stick to an agreed strategy rather than developing new ones. Ideally, these fragile cities should establish agreements at the national, state and local levels to align policy strategy and implementation. In most cases, cities may establish proactive partnerships with the private sector and purposefully build social cohesion across income levels.
While no silver bullet approach exists because of peculiarity between cities, there are several professional input and strategies that can help to enhance resilience even in the most fragile cities. City planners should build inclusive public spaces and bring down barriers between wealthy and poorer regions, this tends to also register dividends in public security. Invest in predictable public transport, including rapid transit buses and access to basic infrastructure and facilities that can reap long-term economic gains, particularly in areas of concentrated disadvantage.
Again fragile cities should adopt problem-oriented and evidence-based approaches to policing and create meaningful opportunities for at-risk young people; this makes the city more resilient to fragility. One of the key aspects is to develop structures for community involvement, because, the local populace is the first and last responders, and thus vital for a city's transition from fragility to resilience.

Conclusion
It should be known that fragility has a link in the structural dynamics of urban cluster, yet city disorder does not imply that our urban spaces are unable to cope with such challenges but hope to ultimately transform for the better. Only innovative approaches that can yield better political frameworks, more inclusive social dynamics, better institutions and ideally some combination of all three can help to catalyse the kind of internally generated change that Nigerian cities desperately need to return again as habitat for man.
No city can exist in a vacuum; rather they are found within a complex and multi-layered environmental, economic and political system. The results from the study has shown that fragility are caused by internal properties of cities, such as the degree of income and social inequality, unemployment rate and urban poverty, police impunity and lack of justice, exposure to natural hazards and the outbreak of conflicts, influx of refugees and sudden price shocks. Our cities can be resilient and stable again if they are equipped to anticipate, plan for and respond to these risks. These causative factors are key consideration for urban planning and leadership (government) to make good use of to checkmate and also avoid the splintering of cities into disenfranchised neighbourhoods, ghettos and disputed peripheries. Below are some strategies to adopt to pull our cities out of the state of fragility  Focus on problematic areas and pay close attention to problem set; these are the 'hot spots' that triggers fragility;  Invest in shared public spaces because public good prevails over the private interest in progressive societies of the 21 st century;  Encourage city twinning: this is bringing fragile cities together with healthier and prosperous ones with a view to driving positive change;  Utilize technology and innovation for job creation, develop security architecture and close the digital divide between and within cities.