Real estate entrepreneur, Dr Babatunde Adeyemo, has urged government at all levels to engage and support private estate developers in the bid to address the country’s housing deficit.
He listed the avenues for support for private developers to include provision of land and facilitation of a single digit interest credit facility, among others which can therefore facilitate the provision of affordable housing units for many Nigerians.
Adeyemo stated this while commending President Bola Tinubu over his administration’s resolve to address the housing needs of Nigerians through the 100,000 housing units planned for masses.
He stated this in Abeokuta, Ogun State on Friday while speaking on “The Place of Shelter in the Life of Man,” during the monthly media interactive programme of the Consolidated Chapel of the Ogun State Council of Nigeria Union of Journalists (NUJ), tagged ‘Meet the Guest.’
While commending the FG for its plan to engage private developers for the N126.5bn project, he urged the president to ensure only credible private developers are engaged, adding that a strong monitoring team should be commissioned to ensure the success of the project.
“So, I want to implore President Bola Tinubu to follow up this housing project with a very strong monitoring team and strong professionals with good antecedents; people that can deliver, people of high integrity and character because it is very important. Once the people overseeing the project are not of high integrity, you will see that, at the end of the day, everything goes down the drain,” he warned.
Speaking on the theme of the event, Adeyemo said: “The story of my foray into real estate business is in a way intertwined with life experiences as a young boy living with my parents in Lagos with a strong passion to have a second address to my first calling, which is journalism.
“In Lagos, I saw first hand the stark reality of life without affordable housing and what it meant to live in a house partly completed. So, it is not for nothing that when God provided the opportunity, I didn’t misuse it. I made early provision of shelter for myself and my nuclear family as a goal because I did not want a repeat of the unpleasant experiences of the past resulting from lack of a comfortable accommodation.
“Housing is a primary need in the Iife of a man, society and nation. It is very critical to man’s survival, wellbeing and dignity. This is also the reason Abraham Maslow placed it as one of the items on the first hierarchy of needs.”
He also decried the daunting challenges facing the provision of low-cost housing, particularly the cost of building materials which has made it difficult for low and middle-income earners to become house owners.
He said: “It is going to be extremely difficult for the state and federal government to have low-cost housing estates. I’m saying it categorically as a real estate entrepreneur. The reason is that there cannot be low-cost housing estates in an inflation-ridden economy because the prices of cement in the market cannot be subsidised by the government. There is a limit to what the government can subsidise.
“The government does not manufacture iron (steel), nor does it manufacture cement, granite and sand. Government won’t send manpower to operators in the building industry. What does the government have apart from the land? You cannot just hijack land from the custodians of the land.”
Speaking earlier, chairman of the Consolidated Chapel of the Ogun State Council of the Nigeria Union of Journalists (NUJ), Com. Pelumi Olukoga, described the Pelican Valley CEO as a foundational member of the chapel and a critical stakeholder who invested his time and resources towards building it up before going into the real estate business fully.
Olukoga commended Adeyemo for the sustenance of the cordial relationship between him and former colleagues in the journalism profession, saying they will continue to tap from his wealth of experience.
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