Nigeria @ 60: Chime urges govt not to relegate housing to a mere shelter but an economy booster

Onoja Johnson
Surv. Ugochuckwu Chime, the immediate past National President of the Real Estate Developers Association of Nigeria (REDAN), also the past President of the Enugu Chamber of Commerce, Industry, Mines and Agriculture (ECCIMA) has urged the Nigeria government not to take housing for just shelter but a tool for the growth of the economy and means of job creation for the people.
Chime who is the Managing Director/ Chief Executive Officer of Copen Group of companies with diversified interests in Micro-Finance Banking, Manufacturing, Consultancy, Construction, Training and Real Estate with over 30 years of experience in the civil service, public service and the private sector of the Nigerian economy gave this advise in a chat with Africa Housing News.
According to him, the Nigeria housing industry is progressing through the efforts of individuals and the government as it is no longer where it used to be about 30 years ago. He said the industry has been able to produce professionals who understand the value chain of the housing sector and that the government needs to wake up to improving on the progress made so far as synergy is needed.
“The Nigeria housing industry has grown quite tremendously, from the various efforts of individuals to build their own houses to now where we have mass production of houses in estates related communities, and where we now have a larger percentage of Nigerians owning houses through mortgage as opposed to the case that was there 30 years ago. We’ve had quite a lot of awareness of different technologies that can be applied to making sure that we house our people.
“The dependence in build and sell is lessening. And now we have sell and build, whereby the developer is aware of the targeted market and the number of people that are likely to buy those houses that are completed. We also had quite a number of institutions that are playing on the supply side and the ones that are playing on the demand side. And we have quite a number of government institutions and parastatal that are set up to be able to do quite a number of things. So, many people are doing so many things, and within the last few years there have been this awareness of a need for us to collaborate and be able to understand that synergy is what is needed.
“A lot of wasted effort and duplication of effort have taken place across various institutions. And I think that at this stage we have gotten quite a number of professionals and stakeholders who are knowledgeable about how to improve the value chain of the housing industry. But unfortunately for us, we’ve not been able to unite and galvanize that effort under an organization that can define the road-map by giving us what we need; that is to use the housing sector to create employment for our people, to use the housing sector, to engender the huge social-economic development of our people,” he said.
While identifying the inter connection of housing and other sector of the economy, Chime stressed that the Nigeria government needs to wake up and work towards a time when people can live and work in the same place. He said, “a lot of linkages exist between housing and agriculture, housing and industry, housing and everything, because living and working together is something that we are looking forward to. I’d like to say that I do think that as we get to our 60th year celebration, there’s an urgent need for government to wake up. The government is supposed to be the enabler. Government is not meant to get into direct construction of houses. There’s a very huge challenge. We have huge challenges in terms of the legal infrastructure, in terms of the enabling environment for the stakeholders to be able to understand and play their roles efficiently.
“Our government is supposed to organize these ones. So, it would be like a kind of referee, policy maker that will now be able to monitor implementation and be able to define targets. What are we looking at in the next ten years by 2030? What do we intend to achieve? How do we achieve it? Who will do what, when, how, with whom? With what? I’ll be able to define this whole process is a shame where I see that as we are coming into 60th year of our existence as a nation, we don’t have any target for the housing industry.
“We don’t have a policy on how to achieve that target. We have not assigned rules, rather, what we are doing is to throw money at various times to projects which end up failing, because for the housing industry to be able to survive, there are two key components. One is land, the other one is finance. Fortunately for us, the fiscal policy and the finance is under the purview of the federal government. Why the land administration is under the purview of the 37 land administrators. They have never been able to unite together and direct the private sector energy and investment towards the housing industry to make it the decision of choice for investors.
“As at today, I was expecting that as we clock 60, the government would have set up a mechanism whereby these various stakeholders who are playing either on the commercial side or the finance side will get together to come and define the transaction dynamics that will give us what we want in terms of employment, in terms of affordable housing, in terms of making sure that every nook and cranny of this country feels impacts of housing, so that we can stem rural to urban migration, which is accelerating in our various areas by creating in the 774 local governments affordable housing for the medical doctors and those people that go to work in those areas because they are human beings and their children need to go to school equally.”
The surveyor congratulated Nigerians on the occasion of the independence day and charged the government to focus on providing affordable housing for its citizens. He also outlined that the issues of house affordability in Nigeria is tied to the attitude of the people going for houses they can not afford, the cost of materials and cumbersome government’s concepts as related to land titling.
“And that is why, as we celebrate our 60th birthday, I wish all Nigerians well. But I want the government to note that one of the key needs of man is housing. But even before you finish an estate for people to move in, you have provided food on the table for millions of us. You have also provided money for school fees. And therefore, we should look away from housing just as shelter, but as a means of engendering huge economic growth for our people,” he added.