Despite the fact that housing is the one of the basic needs of man, the government’s dream to provide affordable housing to all has not been fulfilled. This can explain why the housing gap has proved so difficult to bridge by any Nigerian government in recent times. Available records show that the nation’s housing gap is about 28 million units. Experts in the sector say that it will require not less than N21 trillion to bridge the nation’s housing deficit. Nigeria needs to invest at least N5.5trillion yearly in the sector to bridge the housing deficit.
It has also been estimated that the government should build at least one million housing units annually in the next 20 years to bridge the housing gap. No doubt, the housing sector has been grossly underfunded by succeeding administrations in the country. No government has ever budgeted trillions of naira for housing. The government should stop paying lip service to the housing sector. With over 200million Nigerians and ever-growing youth population, the nation’s housing need will always be on the increase.
The 2019 data from the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) showed that only 10 per cent of Nigerians who wanted to own a home could afford it. This was in sharp contrast to other countries such as the United States (US) where 72 per cent of the population could own a home effortlessly and United Kingdom (UK) where 78 per cent of the population could equally do so. Other findings have revealed that some African countries fare better than Nigeria in terms of affordable housing.
Five years after the CBN report, the government has not been able to resolve the nation’s housing problem. The matter has been exacerbated by rising cost of building materials, the dwindling value of the naira, land acquisition process and regulatory bottlenecks. If the federal and state governments fail now to take deliberate measures to address the housing challenge, it is likely to worsen in the years ahead.
The World Bank has projected that Nigeria, with an estimated population of 223 million, will be 262.9 million by 2030 and 401.3 million by 2050 and thus becoming the third largest in the world. This prediction is a wake-up call on the federal and state governments to really embark on mass housing to satisfy the housing needs of Nigerians. They should indeed copy the housing blueprint of Lateef Jakande, the former Lagos State governor and use it to deliver mass housing to the citizens. Jakande’s blueprint has remained the best ever in the history of mass housing in Nigeria.
President Bola Tinubu has vowed to provide affordable housing to Nigerians. In fact, affordable housing can be said to be part of his administration’s Renewed Hope Agenda. In February 2024, the President performed the groundbreaking ceremony of the pilot phase of the ambitious housing project tagged Renewed Hope Cities and Estates Development Programme in Karsana, Abuja.
Under the first phase of the scheme, 50,000 units of houses are planned to be delivered to Nigerians across the 36 states and the Federal Capital territory (FCT) by the end of 2024. “We are resolved to facing the housing challenge with the clarity of purpose and determination that is required to break all the barriers that stand in our way of success,” the President stated.
Also, while addressing the nation in the wake of the #End bad governance protest in August, the President again pledged to end Nigeria’s housing problem and promised to provide 100,000 housing units for Nigerians over the next three years. In the same vein, the Minister for Housing, Ahmed Dangiwa early in December disclosed that about10,112 housing units at 14 construction sites were ongoing nationwide under the Renewed Hope Cities and Estates programme of the President.
This comprised of 3,000 housing units in 12 estates at 250 units per state under the 2023 N50billion supplementary budget; and 3,612 units in Karsana Renewed Hope City. Also, the Federal Mortgage Bank of Nigeria (FMBN) will through the Public Private Partnership (PPP) arrangement fund additional 4,000 units in Kano and Lagos.
Although these initiatives are laudable, they are yet to deliver the needed housing units to Nigerians. The federal government should declare a national emergency on housing and tackle it decisively. The time has come to translate pronouncements to concrete reality. Let the government be more practical in addressing the housing challenge. To bridge the housing deficit, the federal government should bring down the cost of building materials and enhance access to mortgage financing and reduce the bureaucratic bottlenecks associated with housing in the country. The Land Use Act of 1978 and the FMBN Act and other impediments to mass housing must be reviewed forthwith. Unfortunately, the National Housing Fund (NHF) established to finance mass housing schemes has not been effective. It is indeed time for the government to strengthen the NHF.