Nigeria’s Works and Housing Minister, Babatunde Fashola, has said that housing deficit in the country, which has remained a subject of contention and controversy, is simply an urban problem arising from people migrating from the rural and semi-urban areas to the cities.
For too long, there have been speculations and even conclusions on the size and depth of Nigeria’s housing deficit. Some people estimate the deficit at 17 million units, citing World Bank and/or United Nations report.
An unconfirmed report on ‘The State of the Housing Market in Nigeria’ estimates the deficit at 20 million, stressing that the deficit is both quantitative and qualitative. This means that the available housing stock is not enough while even some of those available are below acceptable standard.
But the minister thinks differently. He says the figures being bandied about are figments of people’s imagination because, according to him, these figures are “unclarified, unverified and unproven.”
Fashola, who spoke at a Channels TV programme, Politics Today, recently, recalled that “the last time Nigeria held its census was 2006. Since then, we have not held another. Then, where did we get this figure? Where did we get the 17 million housing deficit? Some people say it is from the World Bank. I have asked the World Bank and they have disowned that figure, saying it did not come from them.”
“My understanding of housing deficit is that it is largely an urban problem— people migrating to the cities. If you go to the rural areas, you will see houses owned by people living in the cities. These houses are locked up. We cannot be talking about housing shortage when we have many houses that are empty,” he explained
The minister pointed out that, in every city in Nigeria, there is one empty house or another, asking if the figure everybody is running after includes all those empty houses. “The deficit is not accurate if it does not factor in what we have that is not used,” he insisted.
He hopes however that when next the country conducts another census, it will be able to dimension how large its housing deficit is, arguing that if a proper diagnosis is not done, the treatment will also be wrong in terms of wrong prescription and wrong dose.
Reviewing the activities of his ministry in the last five years, Fashola noted that it is difficult to get the full picture of housing prosperity in the country if attention is focused only on what the federal government is doing as the state governments and the private sector are also doing their bit.
Be that as it may, the minister said government was approaching housing in Nigeria from a broad spectrum of developments. According to him, government is building houses directly through the ministry in 34 states. The first phase of the development has finished and they have started the second phase, employing hundreds of people.
“Apart from that, the federal mortgage bank of Nigeria (FMBN) is also intervening in housing development by funding estate developments. I can tell you that the bank is funding over 5000 housing units across the country. It has granted over 5,301 mortgages worth over N38 billion. It has also granted home refurbishment loans to over 42,000 people valued at N34 billion.
“The FHA is also building across the country. In addition to that, there is also what we call site and serviced scheme because not everybody likes to buy fully built government property. But they want government land to build their own. That is going on in states like Edo, Abia and Imo where we are giving land and providing infrastructure,” he said
In the last two years, the minister disclosed that he has personally signed 3,450 certificates of occupancy (Cofo) and more were coming in, believing that a house is not worth its value unless it has Cofo.
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