At the twilight of President Muhammadu Buhari’s first term, Viewpoint Housing News asked Nigerians in the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) to say whether the president’s campaign promise of providing 1 million housing units per annum has been fulfilled. Many said this has not been achieved as there is still a huge housing shortage for the masses. For the second term therefore, Nigerians want Buhari to make his party’s manifesto bordering on housing come to fruition.
Hon. Usman Dankabo: “Regarding the presidents campaign promises and policy on housing sector, since his assumption of office in 2015 till date, there is a huge housing deficit especially for the less privileged.
“So I understand the government in power had in its campaign promises…to provide enough housing for citizens but till date, I don’t know.
“But significantly, I will say a lot of efforts have been made in terms of putting policies in place but these policies I don’t think have been well implemented.
“I know the FCT Minister in collaboration with the Head of Service at one time had swung into action…Specifically, the FCT Minister had promised that he was going to construct houses for junior staff because they are the ones that suffer a lot. They live in the satellite towns which is not supposed to be. In advanced countries the elite make sure that their staff live as close as possible.
“But the Nigeria, especially in the FCT, it only favours the so called big men, leaving the middle class to live in the satellite towns.
“So, he did promise that he was going to build so many houses. That he would provide land in connection with the Federal Mortgage Bank to do a huge housing scheme of one-bedroom flats, two-bedroom flats and three-bedroom flats which would be distributed to the junior staff.
“The Head of Service also deemed it fit…So she also swung into action and even asked junior staff to fill a certain form that was circulated through various ministries and the forms were filled but up till date, as I speak to you, we can’t say significantly that those promises have been fulfilled.
“It is my prayer and hope that the government of the day will look back to its campaign promises and its manifestos and see where it has not fulfilled promises. It has to gear towards fulfilling those promises because people had a lot of hope that this government was coming to make things happen.”
Mr Fedelis Nnazor, a businessman living in Lugbe: “I’m not aware of any housing scheme by the Federal Government anywhere in Nigeria. It was a mere propaganda. Nigerians would have been very happy to see houses built for the masses.
“As it is now, that promise has not come to fruition yet. Probably, in this second tenure of the APC administration, the government would look into it. That will help the masses and it will also add credit to the President Muhammadu Buhari administration if he is able to implement such policy on housing. The masses are eager to see him fulfill his promise.
“The masses actually see the president as someone with high level of integrity and they have high hope on his statements and expect him to live up to his word.”
Mrs Ihinmikalu Mojisola lives in Lukogoma: “When the President came into power, though he made a lot of promises, on his assumption of office, he met the treasury empty and in that state, he could not execute his manifestos as promised.”
Mr Audu-Sule Izuagbe, a Jabi resident and a top property agent in Abuja: “I am aware of the housing policy, but I cannot talk about the performance of the Federal Government based on housing scheme because I don’t know to what level that has been achieved.
“But I know that the private sector through the support of the Federal Mortgage Bank of Nigeria (FMBN) and the Primary Mortgage Institutions (PMIs) over the years, has initiated a lot of programs to improve on the housing sector thereby, encouraging low income housing in the sense that they build houses ranging from N7million to 10million.
“The commercial banks do not encourage mortgage lending because of their financial capacity. They cannot afford to give a long term loan.
“Buhari in his second tenure should use the idle funds in the pension scheme to close up the housing gap in Nigeria in terms of giving out long term loans to citizens.”
