· Gives key steps to reduce Nigeria’s 28m housing deficit
By Wisdom Nwachukwu-Ohaegbule
Many see Nigeria’s housing deficit which has increased to 28 million units as a bad turn but a real estate success strategist, My ACE-China, says it rather provides opportunity worth over $68 trillion.
The man popularly known as the Mayor of Housing, has thus has thus suggested a two-pronged approach of finding locally available building materials in abundance and creating a mass of cooperative system to democratize access to housing.
The Mayor of Housing made the suggestions at a recent extra ordinary leadership summit organised by the Brian Reuben Organisation in Lagos.
My ACE-China spoke while discussing on the housing panel on sustainable housing in Nigeria.
Looking at the 28m housing units deficit in Nigeria, he emphaised that there will be hardly any single government that will be able to solve that problem. He said the highest ever achieved by any single government is about 40,000 units that was achieved during the Muhammadu Buhari military era of 1982.
Other than that, he asserted, there has been no government effort enough to deliver up to one million housing units, let alone 28m units.
He however said this 28m housing units deficit presents a huge opportunity that the profit that would be and the ancillary industries of job creation opportunity by an attempt to solving this problem creates $68 trillion industry that will solve will solve all this. But with the present state where about 90 per cent of building materials are imported aside from sand and cement, it is almost impossible to reduce the cost of housing in Nigeria and create affordable housing.
He put forward twin suggestions for sustainable low cost housing and affordable housing to be possible. He mentioned the two strategies that must come together: Indigenous housing materials that are available and abundant locally; and a crop of cooperative kind of social structure like a social funding social system that allows more people access to these housing units.
He also emphasised the need for the governments to review their wage minimum wage system as most of Nigerians cannot afford even the affordable housing units with their present earning powers.
He said an attempt by the governments to reduce the poverty rate in Nigeria will also ensure that more people have access to housing.
My ACE-China who for now works out of Port Harcourt emphasized the importance of the emergence of any industry peer leaders who are able to command large numbers of followers and organize them in a cooperative form that is able to create values for themselves and access values for themselves.
His theory is that these must be able to institutionalize access to sustainable housing.
In addition, he also emphasized the need for these individual peer leaders to have the courage to invest in indigenous building materials development to help reduce the cost of building of houses thereby delivering affordable housing thereby delivering affordable houses to the teeming masses.
He, however, mentioned that he and his team have been working on a model that would make these houses accessible to the masses through what he called the Social Funding Housing Model which experiment had been concluded many years back and that full scale implementation will start very soon.
Juxtapose that with an attempt by him and his team to register the task of experimenting other building materials available locally which may shield or insulate the sector from unstable forex regime in Nigeria and the rising cost of importation.
The Mayor of Housing also emphasised on the need to create decent environmental and decent housing programmes as deliberate plans and deliberately structured to not only be sustainable but to be trans-generational as housing is a trans-generational asset. It is more secured than any asset in the world.
The Mayor of Housing also emphasised on the need to create decent environmental and decent housing programmes as deliberate plans and deliberately structured to not only be sustainable but to be trans-generational as housing is a trans-generational asset. It is more secured than any asset in the world.
Other speakers:
The keynote speaker, Arch Uche Klu, while presenting his keynote emphaised that housing determines the consolidation of our societal values as every family will need a decent house with which to transfer values and low access to housing increases peoples desperation as most crimes are proliferated by people living where homeless people abound.
The event also featured a lecture on social trust by former president of the Pharmaceutical Society of Nigeria, Masi Sam Ohuabunwa, and other eminent prominent Nigerians that were present at the leadership summit.
The convener of the summit promised that more of such would be coming up in the future.
Communique and conclusion of the summit would be released to the appropriate quarters thereby ensuring that Nigeria survived the inflation crisis in which it has made leadership a state of emergency that requires rescue.
