Sharing border with the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Nasarawa State has a lot to do. Foremost, is housing the huge population of workers in Abuja that lives in settlements along the Abuja-Keffi highway corridor.
Many workers who commute to Abuja live in settlements linked by the 44km Keffi-Abuja Road. The road which is a major link between FCT and some states in the north-central and north-eastern parts connects secondary routes servicing the densely populated places like Kuchikau, Masaka, New Nyanya, Ado, One-man-village, Mararaba, Gwandara, etc. Mararaba, being the closest settlement to FCT is home to many who commute daily to Abuja.
This swell in population has brought the need for more and sustained housing development in that corridor. Daily, developers seek land from the Nasarawa State government to develop houses for rent seekers.
Though many houses have so far been built, the demand is still high as the population keeps rising. From Mararaba to Keffi, one can see many housing estates built and occupied or at varying degrees of completion, just as individuals cough up money to build their houses.
Investigations by Viewpoint Housing News show that though developers are willing to build many housing stocks, they are constrained by many factors. Apart from access to land not being easy, they are greatly troubled by dearth of infrastructure. Those who have got land to build homes complain of lack of access or bad roads among other things like lack of electricity and potable water.
Experience over the years show that due to unimpressive returns on building houses for the low income earners, developers easily opt for the high-end, producing houses that are affordable by only the rich.
It is said that most Nigerian workers earn less than half a million naira per annum or N40,000 a month. They can therefore, hardly afford a house that is more than a million naira.
If developers therefore, build bungalows or duplexes that cost as much as N10 million or N20 million, they are serving just a small fraction of the population.
We therefore, request the Nasawara State government to look in the direction of truly affordable housing so the section of Nigerians who cannot afford owing homes that cost millions of naira can live in decent homes as well.
Already, a model for such has been developed by an organisation called Millard Fuller Foundation (MFF). The faith-based organisation builds affordable mass housing in Nasarawa State.
With assistance from local and foreign partners, the foundation has built 400 housing units in a place called Luvu Madaki in Karu Local Government Area for the low income earning people. The houses which are mainly studio apartments are sold for as low as N1.2 million. They are acquired through a very simple, stress free mortgage process.
MFF would have done much more if it had got easy access to land and better infrastructure. Unfortunately, the project at Luvu Madaki has not enjoyed the popularity it should, simply because the road to the place is bad. The dirt road is replete with holes and gullies making movement really a no good experience.
Though some government officials have visited the place at different times and made promises, not much is done to promote this initiative. Putting asphalt on the Luvu Madaki road, linking it with Masaka is one great act the Nasarawa State Governor, Mr Tanko Al-Makura will be remarkably remembered for.
What stops government from supporting the organisation to build similar houses in each local government area in the state? A project of this kind replicated in many places will truly help us to end our housing problem.
