By Sadiq Abubakar Maiduguri Th e Minister of Power, Works and Housing, Babatunde Fashola has said that houses built under Federal Government Housing Scheme would be allocated to all Nigerians residents in a state irrespective of their states of origin.
Fashola disclosed this yesterday while speaking with newsmen shortly after his oneday working visit and inspection of electricity power stations, housing estate and roads projects in Maiduguri, Borno state. Th e minister maintained that all qualifi ed Nigerians residents in each particular state would be given equal opportunity regardless of their origin in the allocation of the houses. “Th e ultimate benefi ciaries of the houses will be the residents of the states in which the houses are built.
I prefer to use the word residents to indicate people who live or work in the states where the houses are built rather than those who are indigenous to the state,” Fashola said.
Th e minister added that: “Th e houses built in Bauchi, for example, are for the residents of Bauchi. Th at is the workers in Bauchi both from public and private sector who qualifi ed based on whatever premises used to decide to allocate the houses”. Fashola explained further that the object of the scheme was to deliver aff ordable houses to workers based on the National Housing Policy. “Th ere has been a National Housing Policy in place aimedat providing aff ordable housing, but there has been no program in place to deliver the houses. Th at is what this programme is all about,” Fashola said. He said that for the programme to ensure acceptability by stakeholders, the project was built on a foundation that required consulting stakeholders by conducting survey so that they could take ownership of it.
“We are consulting and we hope that we will be able to carry along the stakeholders so they will take ownership of the scheme. It is after this stage that we can now talk about aff ordability”, the minister added. Fashola said that the housing scheme was also part of government multi faceted approach to economic development, adding that the project was part of government eff orts to create value chain economic activities aimed at empowering Nigerians all over the country.
