The Minister of Housing and Urban Development,Muttaqha Darma said this while commending the Nigerian Midstream and Downstream Petroleum Regulatory Authority (NMDPRA) for supporting access to affordable housing for its workers.
Darma said excessive spending on rent could force workers to seek additional sources of income to meet other family obligations, including education and welfare, thereby creating conditions that could encourage corruption.
The minister said the government’s objective was to reduce the proportion of workers’ income spent on rent and ensure that more Nigerians had access to affordable and decent housing.
He said the ultimate goal was to ensure that every unhoused Nigerian had a home.
According to him, about 110 million Nigerians are currently unhoused, requiring an estimated 16 million housing units to address the deficit.
“One important dimension is that people with families, if they tend to spend their own income, their own legitimate income on rent, then they will have to source other means of getting some money to do other things to take care of their families, their schooling, and the rest.
“And that is an impetus to corruption. So we are going to ensure that in this country, workers do not spend 40 to 60 per cent of their income on rent. We are going to ensure that that is done.
“At least if we do that, we are reducing one dimension that leads to corruption.
“But importantly, what we are trying to do is to make sure that every unhoused Nigerian gets housing, gets a place they call home.”
He said the ministry had engaged stakeholders in the housing sector as well as relevant regulators to facilitate the provision of the required housing units within the coming months.
Darma also disclosed that the government was taking stock of abandoned housing projects across the country as part of its strategy to address the housing deficit.
He said the abandoned projects dated back several years, including housing schemes initiated during the administration of former President Olusegun Obasanjo.
“There are so many housing projects, starting from the National Housing Programme and even long way back—even during General Obasanjo’s time—so many of them have been abandoned all over Nigeria, in all states,” he said.
The minister said the government was compiling statistics on the abandoned projects and visiting states where the properties were located.
He explained that the Federal Government was engaging state governors to take over or buy the abandoned housing projects so that they could be renovated and converted into serviceable homes for civil servants.
Darma said the government had identified close to 250,000 abandoned housing units nationwide.
He expressed optimism that if state governments could take over the 250,000 units within the next few months and allocate them to civil servants, it would represent significant progress in addressing the country’s housing shortage.
He reiterated the government’s commitment to implementing the strategy, saying: “We are going to do it.”
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