Stories by Francis Adinoyi Kadiri
Chairman of Nigeria Institution of Estate Surveyors and Valuers (NIESV), faculty of housing, Chief Kola Akomolede, has made a fresh call to the government to rise to the housing need of Nigerians and stop relegating housing sector to the background.
While expressing dissatisfaction over the way federal government is handling housing provision in the country, Akomolede said the situation in the country’s housing sector leaves much to be desired.
He explained that while the defunct government of AlhajiShehuShagari identified food and housing, he went about building low cost housing for Nigerians;but lamented that successive governments had agenda without housing as an agendum.
Speaking at the national housing summit organised by the NIESV in Abuja, Akomolede lamented that amid the abundance of building materials and high-rated professionals in the construction sub-sector of the nation’s economy, housing policies have been characterised by lack of sincerity of purpose by successive governments.
He was particularly miffed by the series of inconsistencies and wrong concepts in government policies over the decades and its negative effects they have had on housing development, insisting that if the ineffectual long-standing policies are allowed to continue, the desire of many Nigerians to have a roof over their heads would remain a mirage.
According to him, several billions of naira were allocated to housing provision in the country without appreciable impact on the people and the economy, and more worrisome is the fact that the situation is going from bad to worse as a result of subsequent government’s refusal to give priority to housing despite its importance.
And with present government apparently following the footsteps of its predecessors by relegating housing to the background, there is a serious cause for concern, he stressed.
He noted that the professionals are looking at a situation whereby the ministry would be given the wherewithal to carry out its functions effectively, adding that a peep into the budget of the country annually showed that what is allocated to housing is next to nothing.
“What is allocated to housing is just for the payment of salaries of the ministry’s staff and not for physical development of housing, so we will continue to talk and agitate”, he concluded.
