It is no longer news that Nigeria’s housing deficit is estimated at 18 million; but the problem is how this huge gap can be bridged; writes Kennedy Dimaku.
Shelter they say is one of the most important and basic needs of man. This age long belief compels governments all over the world to strive to provide affordable housing for her citizenry. However, in Nigeria, the reverse seems to be the case where successive governments have deliberately or out of share neglect or nonchalant attitude towards provision of housing accumulated a deficit of over 18 million as revealed recently by Vice President Namadi Sambo, in a housing summit organised by Ministry of Lands, Housing and Urban Development.
In advanced democracies and even some parts of developing nations, the challenges of provision of affordable housing to citizens have been conquered through consistent and well marshalled plan aimed at providing a specific number of shelters annually for a long period of time, culminating to having surplus in the sector rather than deficit as is witnessed in the country today.
This is a scenario some policy makers agreed had helped a lot of countries to nip housing challenges in the bud and is now ripping the full benefits of their consistent adherence to short, medium and long term plan.
Reacting to the comment credited to the vice president, an estate developer and a chieftain of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, Engr. Bala Bawa Kao’je blamed Nigerian authority for neglecting and paying lip service to provision of affordable housing in Nigeria.
According to him, “Nigerian government allowed itself to reach the level of having a deficit in the country in terms of housing up to a level of 18 million as mentioned by the vice president, because of neglect. Before now subsequent governments in Nigeria has never taken the issue of housing seriously. It was just a kind of eye service that had been given by government towards provision of affordable housing in Nigeria.
“I think there are few regimes in the past that you can say have played fairly reasonable role in providing housing and one of such regimes is that of President Shehu Shagari. During his time I know there was some move to provide affordable housing in Nigeria. But that was not also properly implemented; by the end of it there were many negative things that happened in the sense that most of the projects were left unconcluded after his ouster from office by the Buhari-led Junta.
“But aside from President Shehu Shagari some few governors also tried reasonably in the past to provide housing; for instance, Chief Lateef Jakande did his best in Lagos but if you look at it generally, you find out that today most of our governors have been providing housing but the rate at which they provide these houses does not go anywhere to clear the backlog of housing needs of Nigerians in their various states.
“I feel that the country is far left behind because other countries have to take the bull by the horn and face squarely the issue of housing. In Nigeria we are yet to see that, government makes promises that they never fulfill when it concerns the issue of housing which is shelter over the head of man. Apart from the air that we breathe I think that the next thing that is very important to mankind is shelter which we are lacking in that.”
On the likely causes of this abysmal deficit in the country, the former minister noted that inconsistency in government policies, lack of continuity of government projects by succeeding administrations coupled with neglect are some of the conspicuous causes of housing deficit in Nigeria.
“Well, I think I should look at it from the point of view of government policy even though polices in most cases in Nigeria do not have a continuous effect on successive governments. Generally government in Nigeria makes polices during their time and those policies die as soon as those behind it exit from power. There is no continuity and that is one major problem that we have in governance in Nigeria.
“For the fact that subsequent governments in Nigeria refused to adhere to long and midterm plan of policy execution which has retarded most of the things government intend to do in Nigeria. I do believe that if government from independence had had a good plan in terms of housing there is no way we will be having a deficit of up to 18 million houses today.
“Because our population in 1960 when we got independence is nowhere near what it is today; therefore if there had been a plan designed to cater for housing provision from 1960 and that plan had been adhered to religiously even if they are providing few houses. Let’s assume government had been providing at least 500 houses every year from 1960.
“Calculate how many houses government would have provided by today. The issue of deficit would not have been there, there were periods when you don’t hear of any government particularly at federal level building any house. And this neglect now has resulted to a point where it has become extremely difficult for the government to afford to reasonably provide affordable houses for her citizens. I am not saying that there is no way out of this problem, there are ways out of it but government must come out to spearhead that move.”
He further explained that government alone cannot provide all the housing needs of Nigerians without active participation of the private sector, but noted that government must provide the right leadership and enabling environment for private sector participation.
“I am not saying that the government should bring out money and start building houses for people everywhere. No I do not mean that, that time has passed long ago. There is no government anywhere in the world that would be able to provide all the services on its own because the resources are scarce and in some cases not available. What I am saying here is that the government has to partner with the private sector to be able to make a head way in the provision of affordable housing.
“Why I mention government is because there is no way private sector will thrive on its own without the government providing the enabling environment. Government must play the key role of a leader even if government is not bringing in the money directly but government should be able to stand in front to make such money accessible to the private sector to enable them put it into use. There are many avenues I understand where funds can be provided through government machinery into partnership with private organizations to bring in money. I understand that World Bank has made some money available for mass housing which attracts very low interest rate. And there are many other bank around that the government can also influence. Why I am calling government is because it is only government that has that level of influence to be able to attract huge direct investment into housing development through some of the platforms that we already have and in partnering with the private sector a lot of things can happen.
“I will give you one example. The federal mortgage bank is poorly funded even though I know the federal mortgage bank has its own challenges. And the reason why the challenges are still there is because not much had been done to really come up with better ways to implement the mandate of the bank to make it a win-win situation for all. Where they can become a kind of bank where money that government attracts from different sources can be brought in under some certain kind of understanding and be giving out to other private sector developer who will also contribute their own quota.
“If such a partnership is to work the private company will have their own land where they are going to build such houses and I think that rather than only basing everything on the issue of private sector developer getting a land and building houses and giving them through mortgages system to up takers who will in turn pay over several years. There is need to streamline the way this method is carried out; the mortgage system in the country need to be strengthened properly to enable them carryout their activities without much hindrance. That is working with the up taker of the houses who need a mortgage, through that mortgage institution and the developer who has build those houses and is making the houses available to an up taker. So that there should be some smooth transaction between the developer, the mortgage finance institution and federal mortgage bank so that the beneficiary can quickly get the funds that they requires to own houses. And a developer can after completing a particular houses, give them out through mortgage institutions to the up takers who now has to source the money to pay from federal mortgage bank. The time required is very important for everybody to care about. The buyer who may buy one or two bedroom flat from a developer can pay for a period of say twenty or twenty five years if he is working or depending on how long he still has to stay in any organization working. But one other important issue is that a developer should have a certain date to be able to work out of the loan. There are so many bottle necks that exist between the mortgage institution and a developer and between mortgage institution and federal mortgage bank and also between the three people who are suppose to partner to make sure that housing is provided without too much hindrances. Therefore these things must be checked and corrected properly because so far what is going on in Nigeria does not give the key players opportunity to abridge the 18 million deficits in the country.”
The immediate past national treasurer of the PDP bemoaned the high level of housing deficit in the country, even as he noted that in some countries of the world government provides these houses in advance, citing Egypt as a model.
“The issue of housing had always been neglected by government and that is why we are now at a deficit of 18 million. That is very unfortunate I know many country where the problem of housing had been sorted out. In fact they have houses waiting for youths who are just coming out of school to take one-one bedroom. Even if you go to nearby Egypt you will find houses already build by government waiting for young youths who had graduated from school, who just got a job to come and take the one-one bedroom houses; some are moving to two bedroom, some when they want to marry moves to bigger apartments like two or three bedroom. And these houses are available in many countries of the world. How were they able to do it? It was because of consistency in government policy toward provision of affordable houses. Because they know it is going to become a problem one day therefore why do you have to allow it to degenerate into a problem. Today electricity supply has become a problem in Nigeria why because there was neglect, there was no focus, there was no plan, and long term planning to make sure that as the world is moving we will not be left behind. So unless you continuously expand on those things you know you require in your country, you will have deficit and that is why we are having deficit. So we should not blame any person but we should blame ourselves particularly our past leadership.”
Well spoken no doubt, but again how these lamentation and useful suggestions can get translated into practical terms is the question agitating the minds of many. Government must borrow a leaf from what Kao’je described as continuity in government policies as regards housing provision as well as adherence to long term planning aimed at addressing the deficit in the housing sector if Nigeria is willing to come out of the wood before it degenerate into visible crisis.