Nigeria has a lingering problem of housing deficit such that it will need a minimum of 10 years to resolve if it maintains building 700,000 units of houses annually.
According to a study by PwC, about 75 percent of the 42 million housing units we have in Nigeria, which is about 31.6 million of them were substandard.
Another report by World Bank estimates that Nigeria still has a housing deficit of about 17 million units which will require over $390 billion to fix.
Reacting to this situation, Yemi Osinbajo, Vice President Monday, said access to affordable housing is a major subject that remains largely unaddressed in Nigeria.
He said Nigeria had problems of creating new homes and the problem of actually addressing the substandard nature of a significant number of the units across the country.
He said although attempts to provide suitable homes for Nigerians were being stepped up, getting access to money had remained a problem.
The Vice President who is still recuperating after surgery spoke through Femi Adewole, the Managing Director of Family Homes Funds at the Africa International Housing Show 2022 in Abuja.
“Although there is no shortage of policies and programs that have been enacted by various governments to tackle this problem, effective implementation remains a persistent dilemma.
“Our housing challenge in Nigeria presents itself in two primary forms. We have the issue of inadequate housing supply to meet the needs of a rapidly growing population, most significantly for people on low income and young people.”
According to Osinbajo, a large proportion of Nigeria’s existing stock are substandard housing which do not meet widely accepted standards of habitability.
Osinbajo said the challenges continue to deepen with increasing social and income inequalities in the country and at extreme, many households are faced with the dilemma of survival between food and adequate shelter.
Further, Osinbajo said is not congruent with the country’s vision for a better Nigeria where even the weakest will have the dignity of decent homes.
“Over the last seven years, across different areas of government, a number of important initiatives which have the potential to enable us meet these challenges successfully going forward are being put in place.”
According to the Vice President, one of the initiatives instituted by the Federal Government to to bridge the housing deficit across the country is to support the Nigerian Mortgage Refinance Company and access the capital market competitively to refinance mortgages.
