…Praises pro-people mindset
The Buhari Media Organisation (BMO) has described the social housing scheme of the Buhari administration as a reflection of the President’s life-long pro-masses and pro-people mindset.
In a statement signed by its Chairman Niyi Akinsiju and Secretary Cassidy Madueke, the group said that this is why the government is going to great lengths to ensure that people earning as low as N30,000 a month can easily benefit from the Mass Housing Programme.
“The Buhari administration has since 2016 not hidden its intention to bridge the country’s 17 million housing deficit, and made it clear, through Vice President Yemi Osinbajo at the 22nd Nigerian Economic Summit in Abuja, that it was keen on raising N1trn for a housing scheme that will set the country on a path to reducing the deficit.
“Now a part of that dream is gradually being realized with concrete steps to build 300,000 houses for different categories of Nigerians, including low-income earners and we make bold to say that this is the first time, in a long while, that minimum wage earners can aspire to own their own homes.
“It is nothing more than a humane step by an administration which came to power on the strength of President Buhari’s nationally acclaimed masses’ appeal to focus on delivering on a housing scheme which, in the words of Professor Osinbajo would be accessible for anybody ‘earning N30,000 a month and is ready to spend a third of that amount to afford one of these houses.’
“This is the first time, at least since the military-era, that minimum wage earners are given consideration in a public housing scheme where other higher-income earners are also covered. Again we invite Nigerians to note that only a President with a pro-masses mindset can contemplate this, even to the extent of extracting commitments from cement manufacturers.
“And for those who have a habit of dismissing programmes initiated by the Buhari administration for political reasons and other considerations, we need to add that the Central Bank is releasing a cumulative maximum limit of N200bn to provide construction finance facility as part of the Economic Sustainability Plan of 2020,” the group said.
BMO added that there is every reason for Nigerians to key into the scheme which is also aimed at creating jobs for young professionals.
“This is a scheme that the administration is taking seriously not only from the angle of the provision of affordable housing but also from the job creation end and this is why it is providing the necessary finance facility.
“Unlike what many Nigerians are used to, it’s not another contract bonanza for the boys. It has some level of economic impartation built into it to the extent that only domestic professionals in the building industry are qualified to apply for contracts under the programme and would also be availed of loans to execute the contracts.”
“There will also be mortgage facilities available for interested subscribers and the government has already put up a template for a level playing field for interested Nigerians just like it did with the ‘survival fund’, when it set up an open portal for the selection process”.
BMO says it is convinced that the President Muhammadu Buhari-led administration will deliver on its promise and ensure that the National Social Housing Programme ends up as one of its enduring legacies.