Osinbajo sees solution to housing in planning, not just building more structures

Former Vice President of Nigeria, Yemi Osinbajo, has said that the solution to the housing crisis Nigeria faces is not just in building more structures, but also in planning for both the present and the future.

The former vice president added that the planning should include legal frameworks and structures that will make it possible for the country to have the number, not just the number of houses, but also the number that matches the rapid rate of growth.

Explaining the need for legal frameworks in planning for housing, Osinbajo, who spoke at the 35th anniversary dinner hosted by Ubosi Eleh & Co in Lagos, recalled a memo he got from Bola Tinubu, the then-governor of Lagos State, now the president of Nigeria.

According to him, the memo concerned a survey that showed the number of low- and middle-income houses was actually declining, suggesting that people were building fewer of them. They preferred to invest instead in stocks and shares at the time.

“One of the reasons the scope was falling was because people were scared that if they invested in houses and rented them out, the tenants would not pay for two years, and so the investors would be stuck for years without earning anything from their investment.

Because of all these, and with them travelling, the magistrates’ courts were taking forever to be able to resolve similar and other tenancies. So we had to find common-sense solutions to design the mediation centre that we have today, Osinbajo stated.

He noted that magistrates’ courts were only able to deal with about 2,000 cases a year. But the moment the state started using mediation centres for settlement of land and housing, the state was able to deal with 8,000 to 9,000 cases.

He revealed that, presently, there have been over 20,000 cases every single year. “So we have to keep thinking and keep planning,” he advised.

The former vice president advised further that Nigeria must plan for its population, noting that the country has a huge population that is growing at 5 million every single year. He argued that “if a country is growing at 5 million people every year, there is a need for its people to actually sit down and plan.”

Continuing, he said, “I think we have to really pay attention to practically everything, education, healthcare, especially for a country that is growing as quickly as we are. By 2030, there will be at least 85 million children under the age of 7. So there’s no question at all that we must plan for education.”

Osinbajo reasoned that there is no way in the world that a country this size, a country with all of the various inventions, can ever succeed if people are not sitting down and planning everything.

He also advised that as part of the planning, Nigeria has to pay attention to technology, noting that as of 2022, nobody was using AI the way they’re using it now, especially generative AI.

“Now, it’s evident that AI is going to transform all our lives and everything that we do. Someone was saying the other day that he suspected that at least 50 percent of entry-level jobs in finance, law, consulting, and even some new tech jobs will be lost to AI in the next five years, he stated.