APPARENTLY worried by the plethora of abandoned and vacant properties in Lagos and Abuja government has been urged to make law on abandoned properties.
According to the Lagos-based estate surveying and valuation practitioner, Mr Femi Oyedele, government must make law on abandoned properties, pointing out that a lot of properties were lying fallow in Nigeria.
He explained that with the rate of corruption in Nigeria, subsidised housing will be warehoused by the rich if nothing is done to arrest the situation.
He is of the opinion that only laws against abandoned properties can solve the problem.
On how to meet the housing needs of Nigerians, Oyedele suggested that government should build farm settlements with two and three bedrooms flat in each settlement in the rural areas and provide tarred roads and electricity to the settlements.
According to him, higher institutions must be assisted by the alumnus associations to have adequate staff quarters, while suggesting that individuals should be encouraged to form housing cooperatives with the aim of building themselves home.
Talking about Nigeria’s performance in the area of mass housing provision for the generality of its people in the last six decades,he said: “It is nothing to write home about. We have over 220 million people in Nigeria. At the rate of five people per house, we need over 44 million houses. The World Bank reported in 2018 that Nigeria had 17 million housing deficits.
“ If the population of Nigeria stayed at 220 million and we build 1,000,000 units every year, it will take us 17 good years to meet up our housing deficit.”
“Unfortunately, we don’t build up to 100,000 units of housing anywhere in Nigeria. It only means it will take longer period for us to break even,” he said.
In order to have housing adequacy, Oyedele said that Nigeria would need to construct over 5,000,000 housing units in the next five years to accommodate existing deficit and increment occassioned by population increase.
Oyedele has this to say about mortgage:”Mortgage loan is a debt which a mortgagor take to buy property. It can also mean a loan taking with one’s property to pledge a loan. Mortgage can only work among workers or income earners who can pay back the loans.
“With Nigeria as the capital of poverty in the world. Only workers who have work can take mortgage loan. Mortgage system in Nigeria cannot work.”
On what is required to change the narratives of the mass housing provision in Nigeria, he said the government must see housing the people as a priority. “Right now, government does not see housing as a priority,” Oyedele said.
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