The organiser of the most popular housing show in Africa, Abuja International Housing Show (AIHS) has bestowed African leadership award on some notable people who have excelled in the housing industry at its just concluded 16th edition held in Abuja.
Chief Coordinator of AIHS, Barrister Festus Adebayo told africanhousingnewsonline that the 16th edition of the annual international housing show was a great success, saying the climax of it was the African leadership awards bagged by Femi Adewole, Family Homes Fund MD/ CEO, Hakeem Oguniran , founder/Chief Executive Officer, Eximia Realty Company Limited, Umar Abdullahi , Managing Director of Cosgrove Investment Limited, Ugochukwu Chime, immediate past Real Estate Developers Association of Nigeria (REDAN) president and founder Copen Services Limited and Andrew Chimphondah, M/D and CEO of Shelter Afrique; pan-African finance institution for their supports for housing and urban development in Africa.
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According to Adebayo, all the awardees have done excellently well and contributed positively in housing development in Africa.
He said that the African housing award will become an annual event at the end of AIHS.
He said, “We are going to turn this leadership award to a yearly one at the end of every AIHS, especially for the public office holders, this will be own way to see whether they have done well or not.
“There is need for Nigerians, especially men of the press to begin to do critical appraisal of those who are managing our government agencies, once they don’t make any impact don’t do anything to appreciate them, once they make impact they are not the ones to tell us, we go ahead to appreciate them.’’
The AIHS Chief Coordinator assured that the Africa leadership award is not for sale and is principally meant to recognise impact and excellence in the Africa real estate sector.
Justifying the reasons why the personalities were chosen for the awards, Adebayo said, “We honoured some people who have contributed towards the development of the sector in the last few years, we looked at Femi Adewole who was formerly in charge of Habitat for Lagos state and later one of the leading chief executive of one of the leading housing finance organisations in the United Kingdom and later moved to Shelter Afrique before becoming the CEO of Family Homes Fund which was established by the present administration to finance low cost housing which is an extension vehicle established by the government to attend to the need of the people who cannot afford houses that is beyond N5million. Femi Adewole was honoured with Africa leadership award.
‘’The CEO of Shelter Afrique was also among the people that were honoured because for the first time in the last 2-3 years Shelter Afrique under him recorded a huge profit at the end of the financial year.
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‘’We went further to honour Hakeem Oguniran, the CEO of Eximia Realty Company, we call him Mr. REIT, because of the innovations he has brought into real estate finance.
‘’Also, Umar Abdullahi is leading the pace in smart housing development in Africa, that is why we also deemed it fit to give him Africa leadership award as our own way to encourage him to do more.’’
