Nigeria in need of 23 million houses, says House of Rep   
Written by Luka Binniyat     
Wednesday, 18 March 2009 

ABUJA—The House of Representatives Committee on Environment and Habitat has asserted that Nigeria is in  dire need of a minimum of 23 million houses if it must meet the minimal housing demands of its 140 million citizens based on the United Nations standard.
It has been estimated that Nigeria currently has about 6.3 million houses.

The Committee is pushing for an Act that will severely punish builders of collapsed structure after some collapsed buildings claimed scores of lives last year alone.

These revelations were made yesterday at a Press Conference organised by the committee on a Public Hearing for the proposed National Building Code Act and on a Bill to authorise the supervision of building constructions by professional bodies.

Speaking at the briefing, Mr Mohammed Sani (PDP/Bauchi) said that Nigeria needs more than three times the estimated 6.33 million houses standing today.

“If we must maintain the United Nations standard of 6 persons per house then if you consider a population of 140  million  people, we actually need about 23.33 million more houses in addition to the 6.33 million that we have today. It wrong for a former Minister to have said we have a shortfall of only 17 million houses”, he said

He added that even though there is severe shortage of houses, he nonetheless called for demolition of illegal structure anywhere they stand, as they negate planning laws and regulation.

As a means of finding solutions for the  problem, the Chairman of the Committee, Mr Garba Shehu Matazu (PDP/Kastina) said that the Land Use Act has to be amended. Also to be amended to solve the problem is the Act establishing the Federal Housing Authority and that of the Federal Mortgage Bank on Nigeria.

“These Acts are obsolete and not good enough to meet modern housing needs”, he said.
On collapsed buildings, he said that the Committee was organising a Public Hearing on the Building Code Act which has provisions for severe penalty for any one having a hand in a collapsed building.

“The former Act is silent on penalty on offenders,” he pointed out.

Oh really?
So what is the government doing about it

Is it the Government in other parts of the world that builds houses? The 6.3 millions houses that are currently available, were they built by the government.


Nigerians will never wake up and do things for themselves.


The former Minister of Works and Housing reported to one of such committees about the year 2000 that Nigeria must construct about seven hundred thousand units of housing every year, but Nigerian activists and journalists said more than 2 million housing units must be constructed (by the Government). Where are they today?

Rather than work towards what we can handle as citizens, we prefer to conjure fantastic figures and blame them on our elected officials.

I keep saying it that when we say Government, the people are the government. Those holding the office are only elected officials who are there to do what we make them do.


It's like a boss who cannot make their staff work. Why should such a person complain or cry.

Why wouldn't nigeria be in need of those many houses and even many millions more. Nigeria would end up loosing a sizable chunk of its citizens if care is not taken. Some people are acting as if Nigeria is the size of the world and can accomodate every big dream homes. Reminder: the whole of nigeria is not bigger than the state of texas.
Solution: There should be a national size for a land bought for a house. People cannot keep buying their personal houses on a scale like the almost a size of an industrial complex. Hard choices should be made. People should be taxed 10% of the house yearly and 30% to 40% of their houses if bigger than the national mass size. Until someone molds the ball to tackle some ethics in Nigeria, every other idea will fail
 Another thing is banning all traditional chiefs/queens or any title related to rule without election/majority consent.
 If you are taxed for 10% of your house in any state of your resident, there should also tax you 23% if u have another house if its not for commercial purposes where citizens are hired.  Finally, majority of  homes in Nigeria needs to be painted and there should be more planing for apartment homes and combined homes like estates mostly built high. There should be a law mandating landlords to paint their houses every 3yrs and check their roofings. Serious violators should pay extremely high or lose their houses.