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By Isaac Anumihe, Abuja
In the Federal Capital Territory, Abuja, one thing that catches the attention of both residents and visitors is the sight of hundreds of finished and painted residential buildings in tens of private estates that dot the landscape of Nigeria’s Centre of Unity.
These buildings, which sit in the estates, clearly show evidence that necessary common facilities such as intra-estate roads and utility services have been provided, meaning that what was remaining was for people to move in and occupy them and bring life to the estates.
Instead these property sit in attractive surroundings, unoccupied. That these buildings are left unutilised when there is great and growing need for residential accommodation in Abuja has become a source of worry.
Indeed, developers across the country are currently overwhelmed by the huge demand for residential accommodation in most urban centres.
Yet in some of them, hundreds of completed buildings have remained unoccupied for prolonged periods of time.
It has been reasonably posited that there is severe scarcity of rental residential property.
Till today, there is no clearly established database showing the verified level of the deficit in residential housing.
This notwithstanding, the Federal Government, through the Ministry of Housing and Urban Development is tinkering with plans to compel owners of houses that have remained unoccupied for prolonged periods of time to rent them out or risk paying heavy ground rents.
Yet the need for decent, affordable accommodation for the different socio-economic classes in Abuja continues to rise sharply.
Thus in the midst of very high demand for residential housing, billions of Naira have been and continued to be poured into building houses that nobody will occupy.
Either the houses, more like mansions, were built in some exclusive or tony areas of the city or excellent detached duplexes built in one of the many private estates springing up in parts of the metropolis. Whether built in exclusive, choice locations or within estates or even in other places, the buildings have one common denominator: they have remained unoccupied despite the completion of construction, painting and installation of all necessary fittings.
It has even been speculated that the majority of finished, but abandoned or unoccupied buildings may have been constructed as a way of ‘hiding’ looted or embezzled funds or plain money laundering.
The Federal Government is now beginning to ask questions. It has moved to set up a committee to identify the empty and unoccupied houses in the country with a view to properly documenting the ownership of these hundreds of thousands of such houses.
Once the unoccupied or abandoned houses are identified, enumerated and properly documented, the owners would be invited and given a condition to either rent them out or sell them within a specified period or pay triple ground rents. Single ground rent is the current ground rent.
After visiting some housing projects in Suleja in Niger State, Gwagwalada and Guzape in the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Minister of Housing and Urban Development, Architect Ahmed Musa Dangiwa, was appalled by the avalanche of empty estates across the country.
“There are lots of abandoned estates, especially in Abuja and the vicinity. I think, in some other states, we do have a few of them. We want to take stock of all those abandoned houses. Then, we will interface with the owners of the abandoned houses, to find out what they want. Do you want to keep these houses? If you want to keep them unoccupied, the government will charge you triple ground rent instead of the single ground rent that we charge.
“That will force them to put the building on rent for whatever amount or sell them off because we can’t keep saying that we have a housing deficit when we have a lot of empty houses that have been completed and left unoccupied. So, we have told the Department of Lands, Urban and Regional Planning in our ministry to take stock of those estates and give us the names of the proprietors so that the owners of those estates will be informed of our plans. Any estate that stays more than three months unoccupied we’ll start charging the developer or owner triple ground rent. That’s what we intend to do.
“We understand clearly that the housing deficit is not solely about the quantity of structures, but also about the quality of living conditions. So, we want to know whether the homes that Nigerians live in provide access to good sanitation, proper toilets, sufficient living spaces, a healthy environment, and other essential amenities. We have written to the President and we are hopeful that with his approval for the conduct of the census, we should fix this problem and put an end to this national embarrassment.
“To ensure that housing agencies under the supervision of the ministry are optimised to deliver on the target of providing affordable homes to Nigerians, we have created a Housing Reform Team of experts, stakeholders, agency representatives, professional bodies and the academia to develop a robust framework for reform of the housing sector, including a thorough review of relevant laws and facilitation of necessary legislative amendments,” he said.
Corroborating the minister’s position on the housing data, stakeholders said that all the figures flying about are unrealistic as there is no data to back up such claims.
Immediate past President of Nigerian Institute of Quantity Surveyors (NIQS), Olayemi Shonubi, asserted that figures being bandied about are baseless as there’s no data to substantiate the various claims.
“If you go into the hinterland I am sure that there are houses that are vacant. A couple of Nigerians have migrated to Lagos and Abuja because that’s where they can find meaningful or gainful employment and have security. If we have a good Internet network and 24/7 power supply, people can set up factories and industries in those areas; they don’t have to go to Lagos and Abuja. So, those houses in the villages or towns will be occupied. That will probably reduce the so-called housing deficit. That’s on one hand. On the other hand, if there’s a way to encourage local production of building materials I am sure that will also make the cost of materials cheaper. When we are talking of social housing or affordable housing, some of them are even done by councils. For instance, if infrastructure is available all over the country, local government chairmen can build houses. I am sure, that will also help. So, if all these can be factored in, we should be able to reduce the deficit.
“One way to take the census of houses is to collaborate with the Nigerian Population Commission (NPoC) to actually do a housing census. Without data, everybody keeps talking about housing deficit. How far are we sure. If you go to the hinterland, most of the houses there are vacant. The owners are in the urban centres, either in Lagos or Abuja. So, we need to actually undertake the housing census to be sure of how many houses we need. Yes, we see people on the streets or under the bridge. Like I said, people had walked from the rural areas to the urban centres such that the urban centres have become overpopulated. Then, it will appear as if we have housing deficit.
“In fact, there are houses that are empty in Abuja. So, how do we keep talking about the deficit? If they are not affordable, then how can somebody build a house and leave it unoccupied? Some people say that there’s a bit of money laundering. It does not make sense for anybody to put money in an investment that does not yield anything,” Shonubi said.
In the opinion of Architect Gbenga Agbelu, a strong member of Nigerian Institute of Architects (NIA), and an expert in the built sector, the government should get serious about executing a social housing programme.
“We don’t have the correct data for such now. Nobody in the built industry has come out to say that he has done a survey to know the deficit. That figure is a mirage. The government can reduce the deficit by providing social housing for the poor. You cannot ask a market woman to buy a bungalow for N28 million. It won’t work.” he said.
A Jamaican who’s also in the built industry and member of the medical intervention group, Doctors Without Borders, Dr Marcia Russell, said that having a mortgage system is the panacea for reversing the housing deficit.
According to her, Jamaica has no housing deficit because once a child is 18 years, he or she begins to save for mortgage. The result is that both the father, mother and children have their own individual houses. So, she suggested that Nigerians should leverage on mortgage to own their houses.
