Kingsley U.N. Chikwendu,
Acknowledging that decent affordable housing environment is a right and very important to every individual and the society, housing problems still remains an issue and challenge that both the rural and urban habitants, especially in Nigeria face.
For some that believe non-indigenes are the causes of housing crisis that have long beleaguered some parts of the country, it is wrong to hold such assertion. There is no strong evidence to this claim.
Non-indigenes in informal settlements are more likely to be accused of housing crisis because, they may be seen as non-natives of the area and in as much as they are always the likely victims of these poor housing, substandard conditions with over crowdedness, housing authorities should be held responsible.
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Non-indigenes are very unlikely to be housed in social housing programs run by some state governments because as already seen with the allocation of low cost housing in previous years, it’s difficult for non-indigenes to be allocated. However, some of them end up building their homes in these states.
The main reason for housing deficit in the country can be traced to decades of poor planning, lack of good policy framework, lack of implementation and under investment in affordable social housing.
Today, the government is in the process of constructing houses under its National Social Housing Program [NSHP] but, looking at the antecedents of how the country has be ran by past governments, we cannot rule out the ‘Nigerian way’ taking its cause in the construction and delivery of these houses.
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In spite of housing initiatives made in the past, many Nigerians still live in substandard and poor housing conditions. Many of these houses are in deplorable states and really poor housing environments. We understand that housing provision began by the government prior to Nigeria’s political independence in 1960, housing problems still remains huge, as many rural and some urban settlements do not have access to decent, safe, and affordable housing.
Researching through some housing delivery policies by past Nigerian governments in previous years, one will observe that these are impressive housing drives but, the pain is, these policies are rarely effectively implemented or the implementation processes done in psychedelic ways.
Most Nigerian leaders talk much when it comes to policy formulation and analyzing, using words politically to buy the minds of Nigerians but, with little action to match up with these political utterings. Nigerians are already acquainted with this strategy.
