Nigeria’s Housing deficit of over 17 million has been linked to the high cost of building materials and slow growth of mortgage system.
A professor of Estate Management with the University of Lagos, Timothy Nubi, told Channels Television on Friday that the issues must be addressed by the Federal Government for Nigeria to reel out of the housing deficit.
He asked the authorities to regenerate slums across the country by providing adequate health and sanitary facilities where necessary.
Professor Nubi also urged the Federal Government to tap into the opportunities provided by technology to speed up the level of housing construction in the country.
He stressed the need for houses to be built in large number and that efforts should be made to reduce cost of building and time of construction.
“We can’t get anywhere with the gradualism, incremental and progressive approach that take 21 years to build a house. Cost of construction, labour input out of it, is almost 40 per cent and when you keep labour in the field for almost a year building, you are incurring cost.
“There are modern methods of construction, it has been industrialised that construction time on site has been reduced to two weeks,” he said.
He said that Nigeria had identified the housing problem but had failed to resolve the problems years after.
“The government agreed that we have 17 million housing deficit and we are celebrating 1,300 units.
“Deficit was acknowledged 15 years ago and a target was set to house all Nigerians before the year 2000. We have the resources and all efforts required to achieve the target,” he said.
He urged the government to follow through to ensure that the next target was met, emphasising that until the housing sector challenges were solved, the economy of the nation would not grow much.
To make housing more affordable in Nigeria, the government had started taking-off the huddles and hitches in getting land and the issuance of the Certificate of Occupancy.
The Federal Government is also looking to make available 10,000 more housing units soon and had called on the private sector to collaborate with the government in provision of housing for Nigerians.