Adelakun seeks sustainable, affordable housing for Nigerians

The Chief Executive Officer (CEO), NISH Affordable Housing Ltd., Dr Saheed Adelakun, has advocated sustainable, affordable and revolving housing finance mechanism for Nigerians. He made the call at the 7th Nigeria Affordable Housing Finance and Innovation Summit and Expo (NAHFIS 2024) held in Abuja on Monday, with the theme, “Disrupting Housing Finance for Inclusive Development”. […]

The Chief Executive Officer (CEO), NISH Affordable Housing Ltd., Dr Saheed Adelakun, has advocated sustainable, affordable and revolving housing finance mechanism for Nigerians.

He made the call at the 7th Nigeria Affordable Housing Finance and Innovation Summit and Expo (NAHFIS 2024) held in Abuja on Monday, with the theme, “Disrupting Housing Finance for Inclusive Development”.

In his welcome address, Adelakun noted that the level of housing deficit in the country was so alarming saying that it was time to establish a sustainable and affordable housing finance mechanism for Nigerians.

Adelakun who is the convener of the Summit said that one of the basic needs of human beings apart from food was housing.

“When people are not properly housed, anything can follow like medical issues.

“If you solve the housing needs of people, you would have done a lot of good not only for the people but for the government, for the economy.

“This is because the economy itself can be capitalised by housing development so that is what moved us to start this event seven years ago.

“The government is trying. The new administration has come up with renewed hope housing policy. If it is well implemented, you can be rest assured that some solutions can come.

“But we cannot leave everything to the government and that’s the role we are trying to play,” Adelakun said.

He said that the strategic objective of NAHFIS was to proffer solutions to the housing needs of low and medium income earners in Nigeria through innovative development and end to end financing of affordable but decent homes.

The CEO added that if Nigeria was to rapidly deliver affordable housing to Nigerians at scale, there was urgent need to disrupt, complement and optimise the traditional mortgage housing finance model.

In his remarks, Chairman of the occasion, Prof. Ibrahim Gambari, called for collaboration and synergy among housing finance institutions.

This, he said was for optimal performance of their responsibilities and enhanced service delivery.

“I urge prospective home owners to enhance their access to decent homes by imbibing the cooperative culture of self help.

“Through membership of housing cooperatives, off-takers can aggregate savings, obtain housing loans at moderate costs, eliminate or reduce costs and risks associated with middlemen and secure equity payments”.

Also speaking, the Innovator and CEO of Empowa, Glen Jordan, said disabused the notion that poverty creates lack of housing

“It is assumed that poverty creates this lack of housing but it’s not poverty. It’s actually the financial systems that are not fit for purpose.

“This is because what we have done is we have imported structures, policies and procedures that come from the developed world that are not applicable for Africa. So it’s time for change.

“It’s time for us to introduce new mechanisms, new funding processes and new technologies that meets the needs of Africans and Nigerians”.

On his part, Mark Weinrich, Secretary General, International Union for Housing Finance in Germany, said there was the need to reduce the cost of housing for citizens.

“The reduction of the cost of capital is an issue to address. Because, if the cost of capital remains high, we will never overcome the challenge of housing because it requires such a significant investment.

“There are international experiences in some countries which have proven to work really well that could also fit Nigeria”.