Solving Nigeria’s shelter problem

But at the moment in Nigeria majority of the citizens cannot afford standard shelter. Most of the houses, especially in the rural areas, are built from mud and thatch, materials which can be easily destroyed in a rainstorm. The people resort to the use of mud and thatch because the present method of providing shelter […]

But at the moment in Nigeria majority of the citizens cannot afford standard shelter. Most of the houses, especially in the rural areas, are built from mud and thatch, materials which can be easily destroyed in a rainstorm. The people resort to the use of mud and thatch because the present method of providing shelter in the country is costly and too slow to cope with the demands of an exploding population. It is clear that our government alone cannot solve the problem of shelter without some contributions from the citizenry.

New knowledge and understanding has brought forth some simple solutions that can help address the problem of the provision of shelter for the majority of our citizens. Some of these solutions are 1) the use of building materials whose raw materials could be locally sourced in Nigeria as an alternative to the use of cement and other costly imported materials. 2) The introduction of precast building system as a means of shortening construction time as well as cutting cost. 3) The use of lighter building materials that do not require lifting with machines or plants during erection. 4) Introduction of Do It Yourself programme where people are taught how to do most of the simpler building works by themselves, thereby cutting down on labour cost. Katsina State for example is training youths in the state to acquire paint making skills, the hope though is such programmes will diversify in the future to include training in brick making from clay because of the availability of the raw material in the state.

The above suggestions are practical and take into consideration the fact that today, permanent structures like concrete are beyond the reach of most Nigerians because of the high cost of building materials like cement. The fact that the majority of Nigerians rely on cement as the basic material required for the erection of a building and the fact that the cement industries are few in the country creates a high demand in cement making it costlier.

The resort to importation of cement to bridge the gap has done little to solve the problem; it is rather worsening the situation. The manufacture of cement is a complex process, especially where the machineries used in its production as well as the production technology are all imported. In addition to these there is also the issue of poor transport system in the country to contend with when transporting cement or raw material from one part of the country to another.

The existence of the aforementioned problems has made it imperative for us to look for simpler and alternative solutions. We must come up with solutions that will be a continuous search for new raw materials and other building materials that can be affordable to the majority of our citizens.

This poses a challenge to our building professionals like structural engineers and architect, as well as geologists, mining and chemical engineers. These professional groups have a very important role to play toward solving Nigeria’s shelter problems. Nigeria has enough professionals to tackle the problem if only they are given the chance to do so by our government. Our industries have to also step out and fund researches on new building materials.

Nigeria is strategically placed to achieve these objectives because we have a lot of solid minerals that can be used as raw materials for the production of building materials that can replace cement and some other costly building materials. Among such available raw materials are limestone, clay and gypsum. This is the time to act.

Engr. Shehu writes from Mamman Dee Qtrs, G.R.A, [email protected]