Concerns mount as 134 million Nigerians pay rent

Concerns are mounting over the statistic that 80 percent of Nigerians, representing 134 million persons, of the 167 million population live in rented accommodations.This is typical of city life, where one person owns a block of 10 flats, with each flat accommodating at least six persons, meaning that there are about 60 people tied to a landlord.

Analysts say that because Nigerians are most times not able to own houses of their own, they live as tenants.In some more developed countries, implementation of housing policies aimed at helping the vulnerable, enables such group to own their own homes.

Johnson Chukwuma, an estate manager, who gave this statistic in an interview with our correspondent in Lagos, noted that because there are no form of mortgages in Nigeria, people don’t have the capacity to buy, and so, have to rent.

The Nigerian Housing Policy of 1991 entitles, among other things, every adult Nigerian to a decent residential accommodation at affordable price and it is its non-implementation that has kept home ownership in the country at this abysmal level.

The non-implementation of the policy is also responsible for the low success rate of the contributory National Housing Fund (NHF) and even the Federal Housing Authority (FHA) as government organs set up to increase housing stock and home-ownership.

“If therefore this 80 percent tenants had access to mortgages, things would be better and the quality of life would be much improved. For quality of life alone, something just has to be done about mortgage because there are many people who have capacity to buy but are renting”, he lamented.

Nigeria has a very disturbing housing situation with only 10.7 million housing stock; Ten percent home-ownership level; about 5.5 percent annual urbanisation rate, and a staggering 16 million housing units deficit.

Chukwuma laments further that Nigeria is the only country where a home seeker may have about N5 million, an equivalent of $35,000, yet he cannot present it as down payment for a decent accommodation, explaining that “this is because something that you can call middle class property starts from N20 million”.

Timothy Nubi, a professor at the Faculty of Environment Sciences, University of Lagos, gave further insight into the nation’s pathetic housing situation.

According to him, about N12 trillion is required to finance the housing deficit. Nubi added that housing in Nigeria is estimated to be 2.3 per 1,000 inhabitants, with over 70 percent of the population lacking decent quality urban life.

Nubi whose views were contained in a paper he presented at a forum organised by the Lagos State chapter of the Nigerian Institute of Architects (NIA) also disclosed that more than seven cities in Nigeria have populations above one million, lamenting that the country has lacked real estate -backed capital market instruments and significant social housing and new town development initiatives for several decades.

Emeka Eleh, president of the Nigerian Institution of Estate Surveyors and Valuers (NIESV), agrees, insisting that social housing is critical, but has to involve government.

Eleh, who spoke in an interview with journalists in Lagos, argued that “if government is talking about housing for all, there is no way it will not have a social housing component”.

The Federal Housing Authority (FHA), he noted, was established to provide social housing, pointing out that the authority should be seen to be performing that function. “You cannot achieve an equitable society without providing for those who don’t have; those who lack the basic things they should have”, he said.

He further said that his institution supports social housing, disclosing that they were in Abuja for the public hearing to support the Ministry of Lands, Housing and Urban Development’s bill on social housing.

According to him, even though the housing sector is better driven by the private sector, government still has to enable equitable distribution of housing, to ensure that the vast majority are properly housed, stressing that there has to be an element of social housing that is encouraged by government “because this is what is done all over the world. In India, for instance, there are the Council Flats with all manner of social housing components”.

Eleh noted that there were many ways in which government could enhance access to housing, explaining that it could do that by giving people land titles without charging too much money; providing mortgages; providing infrastructure, so that developers don’t have to spend money on that.