Kingsley U.N. Chikwendu —
A real estate professional, Osilama Emmanuel Osilama has said the Nigerian housing industry is in a state of comatose, describing it further to be in “a very bad shape”.
Osilama who is also the Chairman of the Real Estate Developers Association of Nigeria (REDAN), FCT Chapter, however, expressed optimism in the in-coming president of the country, Bola Tinubu.
He revealed this while speaking with Viewpoint Housing News in Abuja, the Nigerian capital.
The Chief Executive of Nuel Osilama Global who turned 51 last Thursday, further said that what the new in-coming administration need to improve on the provision of affordable housing, are the right policies and actors in the housing industry who can truly implement these policies, adding that until these abnormalities are corrected, the yelling for the provision of affordable housing will continue to be “a tall dream”.
“We all know that it (housing sector) is in a comatose, it’s in a very bad shape, talking about the present state of the Nigerian housing industry. However, it can be better, he began.
“There’s no platform or an enabling environment for everything to be on ground. You need to have access to financing, raw materials which is land. We need the right polices and actors who can truly implement these policies. It is high time when the government will begin to give sensitive appointments to the right persons.
“You don’t give important appointments in the housing sector to people that are not professionals in the industry. A Nurse that can buy a land and build a house is not professional in the built industry. Because he has built ten houses does not make him a professional in the housing sector. The things that a professional from the housing industry knows, there’s no way a non professional can know them. Let him be someone that has been on site for long as a mason working, as long as he’s not trained in that area, he cannot have the skills like a professional in the built industry does, he cannot think like a professional in the housing sector. He will always be thinking straight and be taking things based on what he’s assuming.
“So, you have to put the round peg in a round hole. Appoint professionals in the real estate sector to man all the sensitive offices (in housing) and you will see the difference.
“For instance, when El-Rufai was the Minister of the FCT, can you compare his time to any other Minister? No. Why? Because, he’s a professional from the built environment. He knew what to do, people may say he was hard but, he was doing the right thing. He corrected all the abnormalities. He knows when a master plan can be reviewed. He knows what to overlook and say if the master plan has been distorted, what can be overlooked? He knows how to bring in other professionals from the built environment to form a committee and sit and rub minds together and suggest to him ways of improvement.
“But, for someone who’s not a professional in real estate business, for instance, if you put a Lawyer who is a professional in his own field, as the Minister for FCT, he would only think like a Lawyer, he can never think like a professional from the built industry. It’s either he thinks like a Lawyer or a businessman, he cannot think like a professional in the real estate sector.
Until we get this right, then these professionals from the built environment that will be in the right offices will now influence polices that will add value to the industry.
“There are polices to put in place, access to land. The land use act for instance is over due. It has over stayed its usefulness. It has to be reviewed, if not, the right persons will not get access to land.
“By October, I will be 21 years in the industry and as at today, I’ve not gotten direct allocation but, maybe, I could get it tomorrow. Then, how can I produce affordable housing when I’m buying from speculators? Somebody will get a land for like 20 million naira and sell it to you for 1 billion Naira. So, he’s getting a profit of 980 million naira for doing nothing.
“Then, the professional or stakeholder who is familiar with the housing industry will not get that. If you give it to him, he will not be factoring 980 million into the cost of the house because it trickles down to the final price of a single house.
“That’s why the dream for affordable housing in Nigeria is a tall dream, we are not even close to it, Osilama stated.
The Housing Industry will continue to suffer if politicians are allowed to occupy sensitive positions in the sector.
On expectations from the incoming administration of Bola Tinubu, he said “I have to be very frank, I would love to see disruptive interventions in every area of the economy, including the housing sector. That means I am looking forward to an era when you have the right people in the right places. That’s the kind of person I have personally observed him to be and if he’s going to do exactly that, it means there’s a future for this country.
“Between now and a year’s time, it will be better than what it is today. If you have the right person as the Minister of Housing for instance, and other strategic offices, they will know what to do. When you give a professional in the built sector responsibilities, he will not go and bring quacks. He won’t bring the wrong persons to mess up his work, he has his integrity to protect.
“His training too as a professional from the housing industry could be at stake. He may have licenses that he could lose if he misbehaves.
“However, if you give it to someone who is just a political appointee, he does not have anything at stake. This is the difference between a professional in the built environment and every other person. A professional from the housing sector has people he’s answerable to within his profession, except he’s not a practicing professional. But, hence he’s practicing it, he’s in trouble. He’s answerable to some set of persons.
“What he should come and do is to promote his profession and hence he’s doing that, he’s promoting his industry. Every decision he makes will be ones that will add value to his profession and the industry.
“It is not the same as those who are politicians. Politics is just interest, personal interest, promoting personal interest, factoring how your children will come and take over from you. So, that cannot build a sustainable economy or industry, including the housing sector. That’s the reason the industry will continue to suffer.
I see this government as one that can adjust these things mentioned and things will be better.
When your investment suffers, you become a bad person, a criminal.
On his advice for developers in the real estate sector, he continued, “I would love to call on all my colleagues to try as much as possible to reduce risks in their businesses because, it is one of the major problems that most developers are facing lately. It is a situation where they are presented to the world as criminals because, they take avoidable risks.
“When you buy into a property with no adequate due diligence and you didn’t perfect the documents, in most cases, you end up as a bad person. The developer is the investor, he’s the one whose money is at stake. He ends up as a bad person because, in the course of the business, you find yourself getting other investors to add money, maybe, getting subscribers to buy from you.
“When your investment suffers, the subscribers see you as a bad person or as a criminal. But, if you had done your due diligence, that means you are sure that this land is genuine and apart from that, you are sure that the land can get approval before you embark on the project. Then, you are likely to come out clean”.
