‘Buhari should redo Shagari housing scheme’ – Arc. Bashir Haiba

Arc. Bashir Haiba is not only an advocate of housing for the low income earners, he has been in the construction sector for decades.

First, he wants the Muhammadu Buhari-led administration to look back at what the NPN government headed by Alhaji Shehu Shagari did to get numerous housing units across Nigeria. The strength of Shagari Low Cost Housing scheme in the 70’s/80’s was its fair spread across the country, though it faced challenges of location and political opposition.

Another attractive part of the scheme according to Haiba is it created jobs virtually in every local government area in the country.

He suggested, “Part of this Federal Government programme should be like Shagari low cost housing scheme. But it should be done with the today’s reality. We should use establishment, technology, structural system that is appropriate now –those that utilize local building materials, local technology. Above all, our colleagues in the Federal Ministry Housing and Urban Development have started artisan training scheme. It should be done all over the country. Low level, middle manpower: bricklayers, masons, carpenters, tillers, electricians, plumbers, furniture makers, PoP makers should be trained through institutions. Each state should have at least two artisan schools.”

According to him, government should adopt multi-dimension approach toward provision of housing saying, “The National Assembly used to have constituency project. Let constituency project be housing. Let people voted into power be assessed based on the number of houses they build. The media should ask governors the number of houses they build. There should be National Mass Housing Scheme similar to what Shagari did.”

He said the Federal Ministry of Housing and Urban Development should be mobilized to work on the federal lands and the Federal Housing Authority (FHA) which has branches in all the geographical zones of the country be given marching orders.

Another area government should consider according to the architect is the research institutes that have come up with many technologies. They should be ordered to use their technologies to give housing units. “There are many institutions – universities, hospitals that have schemes. Get all the stakeholders. Let them make impact from now to the end of the year,” he stated.

Recalling what happened when government promoted agriculture in the 70’s and 80’s, he noted, “It took a multi-dimensional approach — at the federal, state and local government levels work was going on. Then the financial houses, all the River Basin Development Authorities, all Agricultural Development Authorities came in one way or the other to give support to agriculture.

“If all hands are on deck, a lot of housing units can be built. First, it should be a budgetary issue. Every year, every local government should produce X-number of housing units. These housing units can be improved room-and-palour kind of accommodation. Let it be part of what APC government will do — at the local government level is to produce at least 100 housing units every year. These units should be room and palour accommodation because that’s the highest demand at local level,” he said.

“For any major contract, the state government should ask the contractor to show how many youths will be employed towards providing new houses. The more youths the company employs, the more housing units built, the more patronage such company enjoys state government patronage in terms of more contracts award and even tax relief. Through this, a state should be able to get between 200 and 500 units per annum.

“Fresh graduate housing scheme should be state policy. The moment one is employed, the employee keys in, either with the state housing corporation or the developer. Each month, a percentage of the fresh employee’s salary be deducted and channeled to housing. Land be given for mass housing to developers who are doing the right thing,” said the architect.

DailyTrust