In his book, Long Walk to Freedom, Nelson Mandela had this to say about his house in Orlando West, Soweto:
“It was the opposite of grand, but it was my first true home of my own and I was
mightily proud. A man is not a man until he has a house of his own.”
Abraham Maslow identified the following as the basic needs of humans: food, clothing, and shelter.
Housing is one of the best indicators of a person’s standard of living and his/her place in the society. Like food and clothing, housing ranks first among the three [3] basic human needs. Its availability is very crucial to the welfare of every human. The performance of the housing sector is one of the yardsticks by which the health of a nation is measured.
Housing markets and housing construction in various economies have served as an engine of growth.
A recent study of housing situation in Nigeria put existing housing stock at 23 per 1000 inhabitant. The country’s present housing deficit as at December 2018 is
estimated at a staggering 20 million unit which is about 15.0 per cent increase from the figures in January 2019. About N21 trillion will be required to finance the
deficit. With a population of nearly 200 million, the current deficit is alarmingly high.
In 1991, Nigeria housing deficit was at 7 million and rose to 12 million in 2007, 14 million in 2010 and currently 20 million units. House prices and rents, on the other hand, have grown ahead of general inflation. Making matters worse, the composition of houses for sale and rent on the market has been inexorably
shifting towards very expensive houses.
Also, experts believe that it is only 10 per cent of those who desire owning a home in Nigeria that can afford it, either by way of purchase or personal construction as against:
- 72.0 per cent in USA;
- 78.0 per cent in UK;
- 60.0 per cent in China;
- 54.0 per cent in Korea; and
- 92.0 per cent in Singapore.
Table 1 shows the housing deficit of randomly selected six African countries, including Nigeria.
The above data reflects the urgent need to craft better strategies for better housing delivery in Nigeria to stem the rising trend of housing deficit.
Extracts from:
Addressing Housing Deficit in Nigeria: Issues, Challenges and Prospects
By Emmanuel Abolo Moore
(Central Bank Of Nigeria, Publication)
