‘Housing corporations suffering from under-funding, neglect’

Efforts to reduce the  Nigerian`s housing  deficit  are being curtailed by under-funding from state governments, the National President of Association of Housing Corporations of Nigeria (AHCN), Mohammad Baba Adamu has said. Speaking in an interview recently,  Adamu  lamented that most housing corporations today are neglected and under-funded by state governments and because of the laws […]

Efforts to reduce the  Nigerian`s housing  deficit  are being curtailed by under-funding from state governments, the National President of Association of Housing Corporations of Nigeria (AHCN), Mohammad Baba Adamu has said.

Speaking in an interview recently,  Adamu  lamented that most housing corporations today are neglected and under-funded by state governments and because of the laws that established them, they are unable to source commercial funding without approval from their state governments. 

He said, “We are looking at a situation where housing corporations will be self-sustaining without absolute dependency on their state government before embarking on housing development. This, we believe will assist most redundant housing corporations to be active. The benefits are numerous, as it will help to provide adequate housing for the people and generate employment opportunities for many job seekers.”

He said that the corporation would commence a practical training programme in March to train professionals that supervises artisans/masons on site to ensure quality delivery of houses in order  to arrest building collapse and guarantee quality housing production in the country. 

“Looking at the current housing shortages in the country, we may not have done enough to address the shortages but we are not resting on our oars. Political interference with activities of most of our member organizations is a regular phenomenon that differs from one state to another. As an association, we don’t have a firm control of what transpire in each of the states and this is because states government created state housing corporations and he who pays the piper dictates the tune.

“ However, whenever there is interferences and politicking, projects suffer and this has been affecting many state housing agencies. As an association, we have been trying our best to manage some of these situations and one of the ways we do this is by persuasion. When necessary, we visit governors to highlight the significance and benefits of using their housing corporations to execute their housing projects. Some of these governors do not really understand the importance of state housing corporations and what we do is to educate and so far it has been working,” he said.