28m Nigeria’s Housing deficit: Responsive system, finance reforms, sacrosanct to meet population demands
Housing deficit in Nigeria has remained a core deficiency among the clusters of challenges entangling the profile of socio-economic realities in the Country. Recently, the issues surrounding the housing sector have been coloured with deformities that reveal long compounding problems which have clustered into blowing deficiencies. Issues of urban development and migration have made deficits in housing deep seated.
As the seeming population explosion in Nigeria takes reflections, the need to move appropriately according to demands remain sacrosanct. However, the response to same has remained largely uncoordinated and unsystemic to give patterns to the direction of putting into course, the required framework to meet pressing needs.
Statistics of the profile of deficits in housing provision in the Country, have revealed gaps of huge insufficiency, not corresponding to the vicissitudes of an exploding population, the realities of urban development, and massive migration among other realities, which have continued to take their reflective forms with dynamic vicissitudes.
In reaction to the deepening profile of deficits in housing, a non-political transnational intergovernmental organisation, the International Human Rights Commission (IHRC) has lamented, recently, the increasing number of homeless people in the Country, giving statistics that housing deficit now stands at 28 million.
The IHRC, quoting records from the Federal Mortgage Bank indicated that Nigeria is plagued with a deficit of about 28million housing units. At the unveiling of a new director of IHRHP, in Abuja, IHRC African Region’s Director, Dr Tivlumun Innocent Ahure, had in reflection of housing related challenges in the Country, said, “Indeed, Nigeria faces a severe housing deficit. Estimates by the Federal Mortgage Bank indicate a deficit of at least 28 million housing units. While the deficit cannot be addressed within the lifetime of an administration, a concerted effort at reducing it is however clearly required. This will entail creating linkages between provision of land to property developers, increased availability of housing finance, reduction in property transaction costs and job creation across sectors ancillary to the provision of additional housing stock.”
That the teeming Nigerian population must be saved from the inhumane conditions of living in slums, dilapidated, and substandard houses is essential. The course to ensure that becomes a reality, demands a working system that is responsive to the rising demands of housing needs as the dynamism of population growth, urbanisation, industrialisation, and population mix keep throwing their vicissitudes.
Affordable housing, an important component of the purview of the 2030 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), is a focal commitment the Government must take heed unto. As the Country’s population grows, with the demands for urbanisation, and industrialisation, with its associated vicissitudes of explosive migration and population concentration, responsive interventions with strategic measures remain sacrosanct.
The place of the Government’s role remains a necessity with demands of a focal significance to coordinate efforts concertedly towards the end of ensuring not only availability of homes to the teeming Nigerian population, but also giving edge to the appeals of affordability.
Since with Nigeria’s population and the urban complexities before the Country, the Government may not be able to fulfill the demands solely, it is pertinent the Government navigate the path of unveiling a system of structures to embody the roles of private stakeholders for the course of elaborate housing provision in the Country.
The housing demands in the Country is alarming. The necessity for conducive homes, satisfying the essentials of availability and affordability, is a course of significance that must be put in place to vitalise the profile of conducive living in the Country. The appeals of the socio-economic conditions of the Country, bear a nexus to affordable and available housing scheme. The place of strategic policies to create a systemic ambiance to drive the course of elaborate housing schemes for the good of the greatest number is sacrosanct.
Giving sight to such system that would give even the meanest of the less privileged comfortable provisions for homes is pertinent. It is indisputable that only policies speaking loudly of reflections of human face considerations are needed to make provisions for housing, with payment plans that satisfy the thrust of capturing the teeming less privileged, forming the larger part of the population.
The significance of affordable housing and mortgage reforms to set the course of housing provisions in the Country running on the trajectory of elaborate coverage, to satisfy the rising demands is sacrosanct. Public-Private Partnership structure, towards this reality, is essential to facilitate an increase in housing stocks anchored on such partnership mechanism. Giving optimum attention to housing finance reforms is pivotal for a change in narratives.
