Fatima Saka
Vice President Yemi Osinbajo has said studies have revealed that about 75 per cent of the houses in Nigeria are substandard.
Osinbajo, however said the President Muhammadu Buhari-led administration was intensifying efforts to make decent and affordable homes available for Nigerians.
This, he said, was amidst the growing challenge posed by access to adequate funding.
The Vice President said this in an address read on his behalf by the Managing Director, Family Homes Funds, Femi Adewole, at the ongoing Africa International Housing Show 2022, in Abuja.
The Vice President, who was represented at the show by the Managing Director, Family Homes Funds, Femi Adewole, said, “Access to affordable housing is a major challenge that remains substantially unresolved in Nigeria. “
He further said, “Although there is no shortage of policies and programmes 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.”
He also said, “Secondly, a large proportion of our existing stock are substandard housing which do not meet widely accepted standards of habitability.
“According to a study by PWC, about 75 per cent of the 42 million housing units we have in Nigeria, which is about 31.6 million of them were substandard.”
After listing these challenges, Osinbajo noted that “These challenges continue to deepen with increasing social and income inequalities in our society.
“At the extreme, many households are faced with the dilemma of survival between food and adequate shelter.
“This is not congruent with this administration’s vision for a better Nigeria where even the weakest among us will have the dignity of decent homes.”
He also said, “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.
“The government continues to support the Nigerian Mortgage Refinance Company originally established in 2015, with its guarantees enabling it to access the capital market competitively to refinance mortgages.”