One monstrous challenge that has continued to impede home ownership in Nigeria is the issue of affordability, as many Nigerians barely have the financial capacity to solely sponsor the home building process or even service a mortgage, if granted one.
Even in the formal sector, the Nigerian workforce within the low income stratum of the country’s population seem to be caught up in the web of the affordability challenge. Although the public and private sector institutions within the housing industry have remained resolute on solving this housing affordability crisis, year after year, the affordability index of the average Nigerian worker does not seem to match the current housing price reality. With a near impossible housing affordability situation, what are can public and private institutions do to salvage the situation?
Reasoning along this line of thought, the Director General of Nigeria’s official International Broadcasting Station -Voice of Nigeria, Mr Osita Okechukwu has highlighted the provision of affordable housing to staffers of VON as one the imperative objectives that he is set to achieve as the Head of the agency.
Okechukwu stated this while featuring at a webinar recently hosted by the Housing Development Advocacy Network (HDAN) with the theme: “Digital Off Takers Affordability Profiling: Some Experiences”.
Contained in his points during the webinar was the need for both public and private institutions in the country to take responsibility in assisting their workers own decent and affordable housing and cooperate with strategic housing sector institutions in making housing affordability a reality.
“When I came into voice of Nigeria in 2016, getting affordable housing for the staffers of VON was one of my objectives. One of which also was to get a corporate headquarter for them and also to expand their database and to go into the media World from the digital angle.
“Luckily, I met a lot of estate developers. But when the value chain came, I asked them what model are they adopting, Are they one of those who want to complete the houses and then the staffers will pay in one fair swoop before they will occupy? They said No that they will like to leverage on the housing fund in cooperation with the Federal Mortgage Bank and I said that is what I’m looking for” he said.
While emphasizing the need for organizations to be actively involved in housing their employees, Okechukwu stated that it is a form of motivation towards productivity at work.
He said, “I have experienced when once in a while, I travel abroad and stay with some of my friends or relatives and the next day they go to work in the morning and also in the night as well. And when you ask why they are going to work two times in a day, they will tell you it’s because they want to meet up with the mortgage of their houses.
“So you now notice that they are working basically for their own family interest not exactly whether they like or hate the Head of the Department or the DG or the minister, but that they are basically doing it for themselves. So I said the best way to motivate my staff is to get them to own houses in Abuja. I have lived in the city for over 30 years and I know it’s going to be practically impossible for most of them to own houses, except we go through the mortgage system”
Commenting on the importance of housing as both a basic need and a societal regulation tool, he noted that “We have known from day one that housing encourages employment. Whenever any government on Earth embarks on massive housing for the masses and the middle class, it will encourage employment it will also re-engineered the economy itself, it is also one of the greatest anti-corruption weapon.
“From the data repository being built, there must be a way to get a market trader, the smallest of them all to have their own house, the truck pusher also, that they can have their own house. It might not be the same and located at the centre of the city. It might be a neighbourhood approach, such that there will be a little market, there would also be dispensary and also schools but it must be aggregated for the objective it will achieve including employment, poverty alleviation and most importantly that there is a repositioning of the people’s mind that the government works”
Okechukwu, while pointing out the role of government in financing affordable housing, also expressed displeasure at how the sector had suffered setbacks in recent times as a result of neglect.
“Government must be involved to invest on the productive process. Because if government fails to do so and you leave it only to the private sector, it can work in some clime but not in where we found ourselves.
“The government would still need to be the heaviest spender, because government has the capacity for concessionary loans and grants. I know that Mr President throughout his life he has always lived for public interest as he’s doing in agriculture he can also do in housing.
“It is very painful that under a nebulous economic policy, we kind of neglected the provision of houses. We even boarded ministers, legislators and today if you go through the budget process and know how much we are spending to accommodate those top and lower officials both the middle, if we can find a way to do a good documentation vis-a-vis how much is being spent today for rentage, Mr President I know, will buy into it and a lot of governors will buy into that” he said.
He however commended the efforts of the FCT Minister, Alhaji Muhammad Musa Bello and the team of the Federal Mortgage Bank of Nigeria led by Arc. Ahmed Dangiwa, for aiding the efforts of VON in the area of affordable housing.
“We’ve met the Minister of the Federal Capital Territory and we have over 20 hectares of land for building but the Minister promised that he would designate it as the Federal Mortgage Bank wants. If we are going to have over 2000 houses, they told us that we can also get other Ministries and agencies to own, because we do not want to give it out through informal methods.
“The MD of FMBN has been receptive. He encourage VON to get what we wanted in terms of houses. So we held a town hall meeting the value chain that is the developer, and out of about 1200 staffers of Voice of Nigeria, the response was very marvellous. They all indicated interest connected to the form and at the end of the processing of the forms, over 800 of them were qualified in different categories. So we also got back to the MD of FMBN and he said go and get us your documents and we will want to pass through your cooperative society” he stated.
The VON boss further hinted that efforts are on to gear to accelerate the completion of the first phase of the housing project by the end of this year.
“So far we are waiting for the board of FMBN to dust up our papers to get going, because from the look of things the developers are ready, the Ministry of the Federal Capital Territory is also open to help us, so we are set to go ahead and we are happy about that because by the end of this year we may be in the position to get through the first phase”
He also promised to present the contibutions and resolutions reached at the HDAN webinar to President Muhammadu Buhari for prompt action.
“What I promise now is that if there is anyway there will be a summary of the outcome of these brilliant contributions, I promise to take it to Mr President, as housing comes top in the agenda of APC, but there are step backs because of the paucity of funds as have been Illustrated” he added.
