Nigeria’s Housing Initiatives Neither Consistent nor Measurable – Fashola

The Ministry of Power, Works and Housing, Mr. Babatunde Fashola said he is convinced that Nigeria has over the years embarked on unsustainable efforts in housing provision that “must change, and give way to a sustainable and well thought out initiative.”

Fashola stated this at the 35th AGM of Shelter Afrique and Housing Symposium, which held in Abuja, recently.

“We are convinced that this change must be led by Government and subsequently driven by the private sector.” He stated his reason for this and in the process, revealed the road map of Ministry for Housing.

He explained that the public housing initiative of the United Kingdom was started by government in 1918 and that as of 2014, 64.8% of UK’s 53 million people were home owners.

The Singaporean initiative, he said was started by government in 1960 and that it has provided housing for 80% of its 3 million people.

He said, “What is common to both model, is that there was a uniformity of design, a common target to house working class people, and not the elite, standardisation of fittings like doors, windows, space, electrical and mechanical, and also a common concept of neighborhood.”

Nigeria’s housing situation…
Fashola said after he announced that the federal government would be building houses, “We have received scores of proposals from people and something that is common to an overwhelming majority is that they all want to build 10,000 units of housing.

“Now I don’t know what is so attractive about the number 10,000 but I would certainly love to see houses built in such large numbers. However, our interrogation of these proposals show that none of the people who want to build 10,000 houses can show us where they have previously built 500 houses to show their capacity.”
He said a sizable number of them were road construction companies, saying he was aware that the logistics for road construction were quite different from those for housing construction.

“Some of them want to build duplexes and I think we all agree that this is not where the demand of Africa’s urban low income lies. One of them who had signed a contract to deliver a 1,000 housing unit estate since around 2013 has run into difficulty after building 84 units.”

He said many of the PPP housing initiatives entered into have either stalled as a result of funding, lack of capacity, land disputes or court cases, adding that “this is not the road to sustainability.”
A lot of money, he said “has passed through the African continent from oil, Agro- produce, mining, trade and other sources, but it is yet to deliver on the promise of prosperity that lies on the horizon.”