By Kingsley U.N Chikwendu
As Nigeria join the rest of the world in marking this year’s ‘World Habitat Day 2020’, themed ‘Housing for All, A Better Urban Future and Global Observance’, it comes with mixed feelings for stakeholders in the Nigerian Housing sector. Nigeria is in an estimated housing deficit of over 17 million and according to the World Bank, the country requires not less than 700,000 housing units every year to match the increase rate of its growing population and urban migration.
Speaking at the State of the Nation’s Housing, the President and Chairman of Council, Association of Housing Corporations of Nigeria (AHCN), Dr. Victor Onwukwugha said “it is a day of mixed emotions watching helplessly the most vulnerable of our people living under unhygienic environment with overcrowding and slum settlements while many are without shelter”.
He called for all involved in the housing sector to reflect on the state of towns and cities, and on the basic right for all to access adequate shelter. “It is an opportunity for us as a nation to reassess our activities and remind us that we all have great roles, power and the responsibility to shape the future of our cities and towns to impact positively on the housing needs of the people”, Onwukwugha added.
He also stated that the various housing policies meant to address the country’s housing challenges have “virtually failed to resolve the myriad of problems” the housing sector has faced over the years. The effects of these challenges he said, has led to the increase in housing shortages in Africa’s most populous nation.
He added that the “poor implementation and non-execution” of housing policies at the federal and state levels also creates problems for the housing sector.
Over the past decades, Nigeria has witnessed a steady decline in the availability of affordable housing infrastructures; maybe, it could be due to the rising population the country has witnessed. Efforts to solving Nigeria’s housing challenges seem not to have the desired effects.
Reflecting on housing provision in states across the country, he said that it is necessary to access the housing situations in the country and how state governments have responded to the provision of affordable housing in the last couple of years.
On the way forward to meeting the country’s housing needs while quoting statistics of the country’s unemployment rate which he said had increased as an effect of Covid 19 from 23.1% in the third quarter of 2018 to 27.1% in the second quarter of 2020 with over 21 million Nigerians out of jobs. The inflation rate he also said increased from 12.82% in July 2020 to 13.22% in August 2020 and it is projected to rise above 16% by the end of 2020. In the midst of all these, he said the naira was devalued to #380 per dollar from the initial #360 while the exchange rate on the parallel market jumped from #430 to #495 per dollar.
In developing affordable housing which he said is a major challenge, he called for the involvement and cooperation of the Housing Ministry at the federal and state levels which he said should strictly reduce its activities to policy formulation and monitoring of statutory parastatals to ensure policy compliance and accomplishment.
He further said that politicking in housing has affected past mass housing delivery policies.
While concluding, he said that to fund the country’s housing projects requires “huge funding and support of government”, both at the federal and state levels. The recent #200 billion CBN mortgage finance loans to Family Homes Funds for the construction of 300,000 housing intervention homes for low income earners is commendable and will impact positively on the housing deficit in Nigeria.
