Nigeria: Housing for all?

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Housing has been universally accepted as the most important human need after food.
Housing in all ramifications is of more important than mere shelter since it embraces all the social services and utilities that go to make a community a livable environment.
All governments in Nigeria since independence highlighted housing as a major priority.
Unfortunately for over 53 years of its independence, Nigeria is yet to develop a vibrant mortgage market and houses continue to be provided through the tortuous traditional method of buying land and building over some years, which could be an individual’s entire life time.
Nigeria’s housing deficit is put at an estimated 17 million units.
 This equates to an investment need of nearly $600 billion when based on an average house price of a modest N5 million.
 The magnitude of this investment deficit is apparent when it is
understood that $600 billion approximates the value of all the oil
Nigeria has pumped since Independence.
 Nigeria, scholars asserted, can boast Africa’s largest construction
market and the world’s fastest growing construction sector, as well as
being Nigeria’s economy’s second fastest growing sector in 2024 – second only to telecoms.
The booming construction industry, however, is said to be serving the
upper end of the market well, while there is little investment at the
bottom end where the need for housing is greatest.
The real issue with ‘affordable housing’ is that the real estate
market has spent years investing in high-dollar commercial buildings
and expensive single family homes, as the pool of units for working
people is close to nothing anymore.
 The rate of urbanization in Nigeria has witnessed tremendous increase
in the last five decades.
Census in the early Fifties showed that there were about 56 cities in
the country and about 10.6 percent of the total population lived in
these cities.
This rose dramatically to 19.1 percent in 1963 and 24.5 percent in 1985.
Today, the national population is estimated to be about 160 million
with the urban population constituting about 60 percent.
The phenomenal rise in population, number and size of our cities over
the past few years have manifested in the acute shortage of dwelling
units which resulted in overcrowding, high rents, poor urban living
conditions, and low infrastructure services and indeed high crime
rates.
Various programmes have been implemented to address housing problem.
Despite all these interventions, Nigeria’s housing problems still
remain intractable.
Housing delivery is a highly contentious and politicised issue that is
of great concern to administrators,  scholars and the public in
Nigeria.
 In the last few decades, the influx of people into urban areas, the
natural population increase and inadequate responses by the government
have contributed to the worsening housing situation in the country, to
the extent that economic development and the welfare of the citizens
are adversely affected.
 These problems are more critical in the cities, where huge housing
supply deficits, dilapidated housing conditions, high cost of housing
as well as proliferation of slums and squatter settlements exist .
As a result, a large majority of urban residents, particularly the
low-income earners who constitute about 50 percent of Nigeria’s 160
million people are forced to live in conditions that constitute an
affront to human dignity .
In many developing countries, housing crisis is escalating unabated
despite a number of new policies, programmes and strategies being
engaged in by public and private sectors in addressing this problem.
The majority of those in need of housing in many less-developed
nations in Africa, Asia and South America are in the low income cadre
and some require special housing programs to be able to live in decent
housing.
Since market solutions and funds may not be suitable for housing this
category of people and in view of the vital role housing plays in the
socioeconomic and political development of any nation; governments in
these countries have over the years been engaged in public housing
provision.
 In Nigeria however, from the debut efforts of the Lagos Executive
Development Board (LEDB) in 1928 to date, public housing provision in
this country has continued to lag behind the demand for housing, as
almost 90 percent of the nation’s housing stock is provided by the
informal sector .
 Various governments in Nigeria have often expressed interest in
housing provision for the masses.
 A review of past efforts indicates that the achievement level of the
various national housing programmes was low.
Rapid urban growth associated with accelerated tempo of socio-economic
development has seriously aggravated the shortage of dwelling units,
resulting in overcrowding, high rent, slum and squatter settlements
which are visible features of urban centres throughout the country.
 Estimate and indicator of the magnitude of housing shortage vary. In
summary, they all indicate massive shortages in total housing
required.
The total housing needs of the country in urban and rural areas were
put to some 8 million units by the year 2000 by Federal Ministry of
Works and Housing, and 12-14 million units in 2007 .
A more recent estimate puts the figure even higher at 16-17 million
units . At an average cost of 2.5 million naira per housing unit,
Nigeria will require 35 trillion Naira to fund the housing deficit of
14 million housing units.
  A recent study based on the salary structure of public servants in
Nigeria showed that no public servant in Nigeria below salary grade
level 13 can afford a property costing N4.75m on a 25 years mortgage
at 6 per cent if he devotes 50 per cent of his salary per annum to
housing .
At 18 per cent mortgage rate, only a federal permanent secretary or his
equivalent on grade level 17 can afford the same house. This shows
that in the absence of some assistance and affordable strategies,
adequate housing is unaffordable to most law abiding Nigerians.
An estimated 75 per cent of Nigeria’s 60 million urban population live
in slums, and not less than 700,000 housing units are required
annually to improve on this appalling housing situation across the
country.
  With respect to affordable housing provision, the report on Nigeria
noted that past public housing policies and programs in the country
were aimed at enabling low-income earners gain access to decent
housing at affordable cost.
According to (16), the 2002 New National Housing and Urban Development
Policy (NNHUDP) for instance, asserted that no Nigerian is expected to
pay more than 20 percent of his or her monthly income on housing.
 But to the contrary, prior studies (8, 17, 18) have shown that the
targeted population of many past public housing schemes in Nigeria did
not benefit from such schemes.
 This was due to high cost of housing units provided. Consequently,
several authors have contended that the constraints in accessing
housing inputs (land, building materials and finance) as well as cost
of providing infrastructure were partly responsible for the hike in
the cost of public housing beyond the reach of an average Nigerian.
 Promoting security of tenure is a prerequisite for sustainable
improvement of housing and environmental conditions. Squatter
settlements upgrading projects need to be carried out addressing
tenure issues to prevent/reduce evictions.
Governments should focus on regularization schemes in order to provide
incentives to families to invest in their homes and communities.
Promoting security of tenure can also support better functioning of
rental housing markets.
 There is no doubt that every effort should be made to make best use
of existing housing stock and improve the quality of living in these
settlements.
 Inadequate supply of affordable land. Land has been described as the
fulcrum of all types of development in any society, the constrain
poses by its inaccessibility has reduced the provision of affordable
housing for about 70 percent of whom live below the poverty line.
Lack of adequate land for urban development particularly for
low-income housing is perhaps the single most important impediment in
achieving the goal of shelter for all.
Scarcity of land leads to escalating land prices, overcrowding of
existing neighbourhoods, illegal invasion of vacant land and growth of
squatter settlements.
This trend can only be reversed by the provision of adequate and
affordable land for low-income housing.
 Financing and facilitating infrastructure to meet basic needs of many
urban communities have been difficult for the majority of governments
and local authorities.
This is, in most cases, due to the high standards that make provision
of infrastructure very costly.
Too often, infrastructural services are unnecessarily subsidized and
frequently the subsidies are wrongly directed.
As public authorities have not been able, in general, to provide
infrastructure to the growing number of urban communities, individual
households, community groups and informal enterprises have
increasingly taken over this task.
 Building materials often constitute the single largest input to
housing construction in most developing country cities particularly in
Africa.
In Nigeria, according to (1) Building materials have been established
to account for more than half of total housing expenditure.
However, the high cost of materials for building houses is a serious
challenge militating against delivery of decent mass housing. Other
challenges with building materials arise because most housing
developers insist on the use of conventional building materials and
technologies.
These standards and regulations prevent the use of readily available
local building materials and also the use of cost effective and
environmentally friendly construction technologies.
The costs of imported materials are very expensive when converted to
the value of local currency at such ridiculous exchange rates.
 It is no wonder that most housing units produced by the Public
Private Partnership (PPP) mass housing come at prices beyond the
affordability limit of the target population. It is estimated that the
cost of building materials alone can take up to 70 percent of a
standard low income formal housing unit.
Many African countries, despite the fact that they are endowed with
abundant natural resources that can meet their need for building
materials production, depend largely on imported building materials
and technologies.
While considerable research is conducted in some countries on local
building materials, only few of these research initiatives have
succeeded in disseminating findings to the potential users.
  In many countries, standards for building and land subdivisions do
not consider affordability issues .
Standard subdivisions are often based on regulations of the
pre-independence periods prescribing large plots and banning building
next to plot boundaries.
This results in large plot sizes and high infrastructure costs.
 Building standards are also high urging and encouraging needy groups
to get involved in informal building activities.
 These regulations and standards should be adjusted also in
consideration of affordability criteria. 5. Local building
materials/African architecture as alternative.
 The architecture of Africa has been seen and labelled international.
The definition of architecture as the art and science of building has
over the years seen a lot of reforms to include usability,
acceptability and comfortability.
That African architecture does not have documented scientific approach
to its design and construction does not mean that it fails to satisfy
these conditions.
A building system proven to satisfy thermal comfort, aesthetics and
sustainability and being a major part of the daily life of its
occupants cannot be anything short of architecture.
African traditional architecture is essentially sustainable and had
evolved culturally to suit the people.
Usually, earth, timber, straw, stone/rock and thatch were constructed
together with the simplest of tools and methods to build simple,
liveable dwellings.
 Although globalization has relegated them as being ‘primitive’, this
‘primitive’ classification comes partially from the building materials
and their relatively low technological uses when compared to present
day western (Architectural) construction techniques which result in
skyscrapers.
Present interpretations of sustainability have given them a new status
as likely technologies for the contemporary world.
 Along with the others that have been re-devised, earth has of late
gained acknowledgement as a suitable technology for contemporary
buildings.
 Africa as a tropical continent between the Atlantic (west) and Indian
(east) oceans has an over 5000 years old recorded history that shows
buildings and monuments made of numerous natural materials available
in abundance in its geographical landscape.
A Quantity Surveyor and estate developer, Babatunde Cawdor, said the use of local materials and building methods will
cut costs to its barest minimum.
Cawdor stated that the impact of green technology on the state of economy observed from the standpoints of cost saving/effectiveness is immense.
“Household revenue in terms of disposable income increases as housing
expenses reduce. Maintenance cost and general bills are minimized.
Percentage of house ownership will increase as well as optimization of
the national domestic economic performances. Entrepreneurship and
multiple employments will result as well as improvements of
occupational and institutional productivity, while poverty alleviation
is enhanced”.
“Socio-cultural Implication improvising green technology in buildings
would lead to an improvement in the overall quality of life. Its
occupants admire the insulating property of mud for the comfort of
living in a natural, eco-friendly building. Available, affordable,
organic and safe buildings, which take care of basic infrastructural
needs, like clean water, solar powered (energy)-electricity, and safe
environment are what society requires for sustainability”.
He submitted that change in cultural value system is observed in the
sense that the shared practice of indigenous potentials is given an
expression, which is approved and rewarded accordingly.
“It is an added value for the cultural system as people become proud
of their culture. This will find further expression in the people’s
satisfaction with their met needs. It revitalizes indigenous
practices. Awareness is enhanced as society advances in profitable
adventures bringing about productivity through green- indigenous
technology. It spurs morale and creativity, while ensued healthy
competition results in a revolution”.
Commenting on environmental Implication, an expert, Dr. Biyi Olademi,
posited that environmental protective measures ensure reduction of
operational energy in construction, adding that green developments’
eco-friendliness, climate responsiveness and organic protective
measures safeguard as well as minimize environmental impact of
hazards.
Olademi pointed out that healthy in-door and out-door environment is
secured, as the thermal insulation, energy saving of green buildings
and green roof’s ozone pollution reduction capacities all reduces
negative environmental impact.
“Extensive use of recycled materials help conserve, restores, and
preserves the ecosystem. Green buildings’ waste management ensures
resources and energy efficiency. The proximity of materials saves cost
and reduces pollution by fuel burning through transportation”.
The expert lamented that Nigeria has been experiencing a very high
rate of population growth and urban expansion.
“This has posed serious problems for physical and socio-economic
development because of the inability of existing institutions and
mechanisms to cope with emerging challenges. Thus, over-crowding of
the living space, poor sanitation, decaying infrastructure, growing
rate of unemployment and under-employment, inadequate and
overstretched community and social services are some of the indicators
of the problems as they affect urban development”.
 The implication of all these, the expert hinted, is that the urban
poor are displaced and deprived access from decent and affordable
housing, thereby rendering most of them “homeless”.
“Consequently, we need to return to local building materials and
technologies to house our citizens, re-invent a number of traditional
technologies to cater to the modern housing requirements”.
“The re-invention should not be on the material alone, but the methods
in which the material and its products are utilized for creating
architectural splendour in structures. Really, these innovations are
important in that collectively, they have evolved a methodology to
architecture that is supported on the vernacular and traditions of the
African building custom”.

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