FG to provide more adequate, affordable housing units for 2000 Nigerians

By Mashe Umaru Gwamna

Federal government said is determined to provide more adequate and affordable housing for  2000 Nigerians in the federal capital Territory(FCT). 

The Minister of State for Works and Housing, Mu’azu Jaji Sambo disclosed this during his maiden inspection of the Affordable Housing and Management Development Initiative in Gwagwalada, Abuja recently. 

This, according to a statement signed an issued by Deputy Director Press and Public Relations),Stephen Kilebi, the Minister said it was  constitutional and fundamental requirement for government to provide decent and affordable houses for its citizens. 

He said: “It is a fundamental priority of President Muhammadu Buhari’s administration to provide decent and affordable houses for the teeming masses of Nigerians especially against the backdrop of rural-urban migration.”

The Minister said that Nigeria’s population which is about 200 million is projected to be about 400 million by 2050 and they will need affordable houses.

Continuing, he said: “It may interest you to know that out of the 200 million Nigerians we have today, it is estimated that about half of that figure is living in the urban centres adding that it is the responsibility of any government most especially the President Muhammadu Buhari’s led administration to make sure that affordable houses are provided for them.

“It is part of our mandate and that is why I am here on this inspection to see how I can assist  the senior Minister, Babatunde Raji Fashola in fast tracking this laudable development,” he said.

He said that his choice of visiting the project was deliberate. “I chose the project deliberately as my first outing as a Minister because as it is christened, “Affordable Housing Development and Management Initiative of 2000 housing units to 2000 families right here in the Federal Capital territory and if we get it right, it will be a template that will be replicated all over the county and our drive is to see how we can get it at the lowest cost possible.”

Taking the Minister on tour of the project, the Head of Public Private Partnership of the Ministry, Abimbola Asein said that the Affordable Housing Development and Management Initiative was sitting on  113 hectares of land to provide affordable houses for Nigerians especially the low and middle income earners.

Arc. Asein said that the initiative was a public, private partnership programme to provide affordable houses for Nigerians.

She added: “The first phase of the project which commenced in December 2021  is to put the infrastructure (roads and drainages in place which is about 25% completed and we hope that when the houses are provided, they will be affordable to all Nigerians.”