By Patrick Andrew Abuja
Th e Minister of Power, Works and Housing, Babatunde Raji Fashola, has advised Nigerians to key into the concept of mortgages as a means of fi nancing home ownership. Advising them to embrace the system, Fashola said the federal government has reformed the Federal Mortgage Bank of Nigeria (FMBN) and Federal Housing Authority (FHA) making both alive to their responsibilities of meeting the housing needs of Nigerians with construction of housing estate across the nation. Accordingly, he said the on-going National Housing Programme (NHP) is a new housing policy conceived by the present administration to achieve acceptability and aff ordability by Nigerians.
“Th e Housing policy is geared towards providing aff ordable housing for Nigerians in both private and public sectors”, he said in a television programme while appraising his performance in the housing sector in the past two years of President Muhammadu Buhari’s administration.
Fashola said that the Ministry is currently constructing about 2,000pilot scheme housing units in 33 States of the country with targeted beneficiaries within an income bracket of grade level 8 – 14 in both private and public sectors. Already, he said the Minister of State, Mustapha Baba Shehuri, who has undergone inspection tour of houses under construction in the 33 States has been impressed with the level of work so far done, adding that some of the housing constructions are at the roofing and lintel stages.
