‘Innovative finance, infrastructure solution to Nigeria’s housing challenge’

By Mustapha Suleiman Stakeholders who attended this year’s Abuja Housing Show emphasised the importance of innovative finance and infrastructure to solving the myriad of challenges affecting Nigeria’s housing sector. One of the speakers at the show, Mallam Ibrahim Aliyu, CEO-Urban Shelter, said there was no single city in the country that could boast of adequate […]

By Mustapha Suleiman

Stakeholders who attended this year’s Abuja Housing Show emphasised the importance of innovative finance and infrastructure to solving the myriad of challenges affecting Nigeria’s housing sector.

One of the speakers at the show, Mallam Ibrahim Aliyu, CEO-Urban Shelter, said there was no single city in the country that could boast of adequate water supply and infrastructure.

He said: “An economy with over 15 per cent inflation, mortgage finance will always be high, even over 20 per cent. Innovation is key to housing infrastructure development, and professionals are to ensure 100 per cent provision and management of the country’s infrastructure.”

A communiqué issued at the end of the three-day show stated that housing for the poor, or social housing programme needed at least N1tn through private and public sources to stimulate economic growth of the country.

In the communiqué, the stakeholders urged the Federal Government to contribute N100bn and mobilise business and private sectors to also partake in the social housing programme.

The stakeholders also called for the recapitalisation of the Federal Mortgage Bank of Nigeria (FMBN) to provide decent houses for people.

It read in part: “Housing problem in Nigeria is faced by the lower and the upper income classes. The have-nots are the lower class; constituted by the workers, whose inability to have adequate housing is due to low income resulting from poor wage. The upper income class can conveniently afford what the private sector provides.

“Experts’ attention is needed to address deficit issues by examining the increasing phenomenon of vacant houses in Abuja in order to be made affordable to those in need. Affordability test, for example, can determine those in need and can afford housing, because salary alone cannot fund mortgage, resulting into housing units not being affordable by the contributors because salaries cannot service present mortgage arrangements.”