₦airaland Forum

Waiting for my sister, she wrote on Thursday.

Residents and Stakeholders have complained over the deplorable state of facilities and conditions in Nigerian housing estate.

They lamented over the poor state of facilities in federal government/state owned housing estates in the country, which are suffering from negligence and lack of maintenance.

Maintenance of existing housing stock has been in the front burner without any concrete action or blueprint by the authorities. For instance, the Nigerian Housing Policy (NHP) didn’t provide for the maintenance to ensure longevity and aesthetic look of government owned buildings.

According to the United Nations Centre for Human Settlement (UNCHS), poor housing maintenance in many developing countries has led to deplorable building conditions and is worsened by lack of workable strategies/techniques for implementation.

Specifically, in most Nigerian housing estates , the non-maintenance of major buildings and infrastructure such as, road network and associated sewages/drainages, gates/security posts, shopping facilities, and parking spaces, green areas, street light, perimetre fencing, refuse collection bins and disposal, power and water supply among others, have left the estates in shambles.

This is evident in locations like, Gwarinpa, Lugbe, Kubwa, Kado and Karu of the Federal Capital Territory.

According to the Chairman of Lugbe Residents Association, Mr. Odelana Adesina, the estate, which accommodates more than 70,000 residents, lacked pipe-borne water; waste disposal system as well as good road networks, thus, placing the residents in a precarious situation and susceptible to health challenges.

Adesina bemoaned the absence of light and government’s hospital in the locations and called for immediate solution to the problem.

The situation is the same at the Festac Town, a federal housing estate located along the Lagos-Badagry Expressway in Lagos. It showed that many of the windows in the housing units have been broken, the gates are visibly rotten, residents worry about power supply and the general aesthetics of an ideal housing units are lacking.

Speaking on the state of facilities in the estate, a resident, Mr. Uche Amadi lamented that issues of water supply and power have held resident bound overtime.

According to him, power supply has been irregular, making it impossible for residents to pump water. He stressed that absence of power in the estate has also impacted negatively on his barbing salon business as he often rely on generator.

“Most times, we have to buy water from hawkers because of poor power supply and that is additional expenses for us. It is also usually a noisy environment as neighbours would put on their generators”.

On her part, Mrs. Funmilayo Ojerinde said the physical outlook of the estate is a disincentive to would be tenants as the paintwork has faded over the years, making the structures to look very old. She lamented that on several occasions, her family has to set aside special budget to fix windows that have become broken and repair the busted pipes connecting the sewage system.

For residents at the Satellite Town Estate, basic infrastructures like good roads, water, drainage system and power supply are critical problems that they battle with. Investigations revealed that the ridiculous state of infrastructure in area, which is making residents to desert the area.

The situation is not different for resident in Kudeyibu and Ire Akari Estates in Igando/Ikotun Local Council of Lagos State are facing the challenge of poor drainage, power supply and bad road among others. According to residents the ugly situation, has made motorists to avoid the communities especially during raining seasons.

A resident in the area, Adebisi Bello said that the road has been in bad form for over seven years.

Bello posited that the bad road affects the movement of vehicles and pedestrians within and outside the community because the only road that connects the residents to other parts of Lagos is in a bad shape. He said residents always engage in clearing the drainage every Saturdays to ensure that the road is at least passable after the rains.

Also, findings during a visit to Gowon Estate, a federal government residential located at Egbeda, Lagos which houses the Nigerian Navy, the Police and Customs, revealed the height of deterioration of situated facilities like toilets, water tanks, windows, the building walls and the estates are generally wearing slum-like status.

Reacting to the development, the Group Managing Director, International Facilities Service, Dr. Tunde Ayeye lamented the sad commentary as it relate to management of estates as well as other infrastructure across the nation.

According to him, there was the need to create a commercial conversation for the private sector to be involved in the maintenance of the estates and assets. He noted that the resources required to manage public buildings are very huge and as much as the government might be trying, the resources are not just enough to salvage the ugly situation.

Ayeye said: “Government needs to move its spending from input, production, to the output side. Handover the facilities including buildings, health and educational facilities to the private sector and let them be responsible for their management while government should establish the standard with which they should operate and strictly demand certain level of standard of operation from the facility managers”.

Commenting, the Group Managing Director/CEO, Alpha Mead Facilities, Mr. Femi Akintunde observed that when people don’t have common objectives and goals, it becomes difficult to harmonise the interest to maintain federal government estates which nobody currently see as anybody’s estates unlike private residential where the developer would have put certain structures, plans/modalities in place for maintenance.

He said, “The estates were established at a time when government believed that it would manage them, the economic situation as at the time coupled with the way government was structured made it possible, but, the situation has changed and we have not adapted to the current situation to suit the condition of those estates. For instance, FESTAC which was built by Federal Government and given to civil servants, the ministry could maintain it as at the time but we reached a point when those estates were sold.

“We can’t call those estates federal government owned anymore, because private people have owned it. The more we call them federal government estate, the less people would take responsibility for their maintenance. We must manage the perception that it’s privately owned”.

He posited that the ownership which transferred to people didn’t make the responsibility for management as an institution that could sustain it like when it was being run by the government. He added that the responsibility to manage the assets, has been decentralised based on the ownership structure.


Akintunde further, noted that it’s possible that certain maintenance constitution might have been put in place but lamented on how enforceable the constitutions are. According to him, facility management requires funding and once the services can’t be funded through a well structured programme, it would be difficult to sustain standard of maintenance.

“The people in those estates have to carry out the maintenance, organised themselves into bodies, commit every members to a communal forum; empower them through legal right to note everyone interest.”

He also said that “the body saddled with the responsible could organise the estates into a sizable units and get a consultant to develop a maintenance programme for them. The services to be provided would cover environmental and things like road and drains maintenance, street light, security, recreation area, cleaning, refuse collection and landscaping.”

SOURCE: https://housingnews.org.ng/2018/11/06/stakeholders-residents-groan-over-deplorable-facilities-in-nigerian-housing-estates/

Liberia’s National Housing Authourity (NHA) is set to construct  50000 affordable housing units by signing a Memorandum with the GELPAZ Liberia.

According to the Deputy Managing Director for Technical Services at the NHA, Hon. Isaac Roberts, Jr,  the project will involve at least 500 units.

He also said the project will spread in two communities, Memeh Town, near Ricks Institute and VOA in Brewerville and Montserrado County first as it aims to further the construction in 15 counties.

He said further that an additional 12.5 acres of land has been acquired to the already owned 12.5 acres of land in VOA area.

The land he said will be developed to resettle about 64 families living in temporary homes near VOA, Brewerville.

90% of locally alternative materials have been billed to be used for the construction.

The acquired land is close to the beach with a beach front design that will be built at a cost of twelve to fifteen thousand dollars. The housing will comprise of one bedroom apartment, two bedroom, three bedroom and four bedroom apartment represented by F1, F2, F3, and F4 respectively.

Click here to watch weekly episodes of our Housing Development Programme on AIT

Mr. Roberts also added that the units will be sub divided into four categories namely social, luxurious, economy luxurious and pro-poor housing. He explains that the division was to give Liberians financial options they can choose from according to their financial positions.

Robertsfield Highway – Sarpawein or Tower Hill and the Schefillin Town will also be targeted. The units will be built using up to 90% locally alternative materials.

60% of Liberians in urban areas live in the slums in a country where urbanization rate is 3 per cent. The housing crisis came after years of civil war. NHA estimates that by 2030, 500 000 housings will be needed.

The NHA is also holding talks with other investors for construction of an additional 30 000 units across the country. This is in efforts of President George Weah’s pledge of building affordable homes.

SOURCE: https://housingnews.org.ng/2018/11/05/liberia-set-to-build-50000-affordable-homes/

The staff of the multimedia organisation, Gotel Communications, owned by former vice president, Atiku Abubakar, are currently in distress over owed severance benefits and delays in payment of salaries.

The Yola, Adamawa State based media organisation, which has a television channel and two radio stations, has also scaled down its operational hours due to challenges associated with finances and management.

Uncertainty is brewing among staff who the company owes over N97 million in unpaid entitlements, due to disengagement of their previous appointments.

Insiders blamed the situation on what they called a “sit-tight and overbearing committee” which Mr Abubakar set up to reposition the company three years ago, and the former vice president’s carefree attitude to the business.

The indebtedness started in 2016 after the committee appointed to re-organise the station sacked all staffers and re-engaged some of them in fresh appointments.

Those who were asked to go were reportedly paid promptly while those re-absolved in the organisation are yet to get their pay despite issuance of disengagement letters bearing what every staff was due to receive.

Staff retrenchment
Insiders at the station told PREMIUM TIMES the business became distressed with the economic recession of 2015, leading to a series of reorganisation measures.

To coordinate the reorganisation, Mr Abubakar, who on Sunday emerged the presidential candidate of the opposition People’s Democratic Party (PDP) for the 2019 elections. appointed a seven-member committee named Gotel Communications Restructuring Committee (GCRC).

The committee is headed by Adamu Modibbo, a retired banker and People’s Democratic Party (PDP) governorship aspirant in Adamawa State.

Others in the committee are Babakura Jatau; a son of Mr Abubakar, Abba Abubakar; Timaus Mathias; Abdullahi Nyako; and Abdullahi Babalele. The organisation’s acting managing director, Mohammed El-Yakub is the secretary of the committee.




In October 2016, the committee took the decision to cut down staff strength of the station.

PREMIUM TIMES had reported how the workforce was scaled down in the wake of the reforms, which brought down staff number from 306 to 125.

The disengagement and re-absorption were initially carried out verbally before local unions pushed for formal communication.

It took almost a year before the management issued letters dated August 2017, backdating the actions to October 2016.

One staff who spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of victimisation, said the reduction in staff strength was so sharp that current staff are being overworked.

PREMIUM TIMES learnt that apart from those retrenched, some staff also resigned their posts due to the situation at the stations.

One staff alleged that a few staffers later hired by the controversial committee were not as competent as those sacked, and therefore unable to cope.

“For example, I work for almost seven days a week running from one task to another, something that ought to be done by nothing less than three staff. I hardly get a day off, throughout the week,” he said.

There has also not been a new condition of service and salary scale in place, despite the spirited effort of the local chapter of the Nigerian Union of Journalists (NUJ) and the National Radio, Television and Theatre Workers Union (RATTAWU).

A November resolution of the combined sittings of the two unions seen by our reporter catalogued the issues and appealed to the reorganisation committee for redress.




The company’s managing director, Mohammed El-Yakub, said his management team is pushing for the settlement of the owed benefits through the restructuring committee.

But speaking to PREMIUM TIMES, chairperson of the Gotel Chapel of the NUJ, Muhammad Mustapha, said almost a year since the November 2017 submission to the management, the issues are yet to be addressed.

Rather than attending to contending issues, in line with the purported reforms sought to be implemented, the committee is overseeing what one staff called “strangulation” of the radio and television channels.

“As I speak to you, we don’t have internet connection. We use modem, and even the modems are inadequate that some of us have to provide for ourselves,” one source, a presenter at one of the radio stations said.

The radio station on AM frequency, which used to operate for 24 hours has scaled down hours of operations, and insiders said even in those active hours, the stations often go off air due to short supply of fuel.

“Sometimes, if there is no electricity, we have to be off air as diesel is not always available to power the stations. Finances are now controlled by the committee and the managing director is just there, helpless,” on operation staff said.

Committee reacts
When contacted, chairman of the restructuring committee, Adamu Modibbo, denied charges of mismanaging the stations.

He admitted that staff were being owed benefits from the retrenchment but, contrary to the promises his committee made to the staff about payment, Mr Modibbo told PREMIUM TIMES they are not paying anytime soon.

Mr Modibbo, who initially said the new system has written off the old condition of service which “was not contributory pension system” however, said under the new contributory pension arrangement, the company cannot pay those benefits until those staff are unemployed.

Reminded that the old system was different, by his own admission, and that beneficiaries were already issued with letters of engagement bearing the amount they are each entitled to, Mr Modibbo maintained his grounds.

“Those that are not paid are those that were asked to continue to work. We reabsorbed them,” he said.

“In other words, the reason why we said they were disengaged and reabsorbed is that is the nature of the new condition of service because it is the contributory pension scheme.




“We disengaged them under the former system but reabsorbed them under the new condition of service which is contributory pension scheme. How do you expect us to pay them entitlement when they are still working? Can you pay someone pension when he is still getting salary?”


Source: https://www.premiumtimesng.com/news/headlines/289103-staff-of-atikus-media-outfit-cry-over-unpaid-entitlements.html

Niyi Oyedeji writes on the challenges many Nigerian ladies face in having access to sanitary pads for their menstrual cycle. He highlighted the high price of the commodity, the country’s harsh economy and the negligence of the society towards girl-child as factors spurring the problem.


Affording menstrual pad has not been easy for Chioma Ukwuoma, as she laments on how it has been difficult for her to get money to buy sanitary pad with the current harsh economy plaguing Nigerians.

“I don’t even go to school once I’m having menstrual period; what I do is to cut part of my mum’s abandoned wrapper and use as pad instead of wasting money on sanitary pad,” the 18-year-old senior secondary school (SSS 2), student of a public secondary school in Ebonyi State narrates.

In some poor countries like Nigeria, women of ages 15 – 49 face a lot of difficulties in affording sanitary pads. The dwindling country’s economy has further worsened the crisis, as most families struggle to make ends meet, sanitary pad thereby considered as an unnecessary commodity, thus, leaving the teeming women between the ages that menstruate alone with their crosses to bear.

A United Nations’ Human Development report in 2006, estimated Nigeria as the most populated in Africa with an estimated 130 million inhabitants ― one in every five Africans is a Nigerian.

It further puts Nigeria at 159 out of 177 African countries, with 70.8 per cent of the population living on less than one dollar a day and 92.4 per cent on less than two dollars a day.

Majority of Nigerians are living in abject poverty, as they strive to eat, find shelter and live a healthy life but yet, the prices of goods and commodities are on the wheel. The price of both local and foreign sanitary pads has skyrocketed and some mothers have prioritised, expectedly so, food provision for their children rather than buying sanitary pads for their menstrual cleanliness and protection.

Mrs Iyabo Afolabi, a 65-year-old woman, who stays in a low-income suburb in Ibadan, Oyo State said she has never purchased sanitary pad for any of her three daughters owing to the cost of the commodity.

“My own is to provide them foods to eat, so they won’t be hungry but I can’t afford to buy them that thing called sanitary pad. When I was young and within the age that experiences the monthly visitor called menstruation, I use rag cloth from towel or from my old wrapper and that’s what I have taught Feyi and her two younger sisters. Perhaps they now buy pads by themselves now that they have grown up,” she said.

The sanitary pad remains an essential commodity for every woman within the age that uses it. Regrettably, the draconian increase in the price of the commodity in Nigeria has made it difficult for the concerned women to purchase, especially young girls and low-income earners.

There exist different brands of sanitary pads in the Nigerian market, sadly, these popular sanitary pads now have their prices doubled the amount people purchases them few years ago; this has forced many Nigerian women to resort to rags, tissue paper, towels and sanitary pads of uncertain quality.


Subair Haleema, a National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) member, serving in Ekiti State disclosed that although she uses sanitary pad but the price has affected the number of times she changes it.

“Normally, whenever I’m having my period, I change my sanitary pad at least five times a day but since the price has increased and the money I use to buy two to three sanitary pads before can only get me one, I have resorted to changing my pad just three times a day,” she lamented.

Also, a teenage girl, Adekola Folasade, said that her mother is the one that supplies her sanitary pad she uses for her menstrual period, but her mother often “warns her against the abuse of the pad because of the price she purchases the commodity.”

Meanwhile, according to a publication by United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO), one out of 10 girls in Sub-Sahara African countries misses school during their menstrual period.

Many girls drop out of school once they start experiencing menstrual period. In fact, some Nigerian ladies are married out once they start having their menstruation ― no doubt, this is rampant in the northern part of Nigeria.

Shuaib Abdulrahman, a native of Kaima, in Kwara State of Nigeria has revealed that ladies are married out once they start seeing their period in his village.

“In Kaima village, where I hail from, it is part of our culture to give our ladies hand out in marriage once they start menstruating although the culture is gradually going into extinction due to civilisation.”

It is established that girl child education is necessary for any country that wants to progress and that is why the United Nations, through the Sustainable Development Goal number four has advocated for all-inclusive and equitable quality education and promotes lifelong learning opportunities for all. With a vision to ensure that all boys and girls complete free and equitable primary and secondary education by 2030.

However, Nigeria is threatened with low girl child education. This was validated in a report by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) that 40 per cent of Nigerian children do not attend school with northern region recording the lowest school attendance rate in the country, particularly for the girl child. The research has shown that when girls could not access sanitary products, they resort to staying out of school.

Mrs Adebayo, who is a Primary Six class teacher in a public primary school in Ikire, Osun State, lamented how some female students in her class do choose to stay at home during their menstrual period.

“I know when each of my female students is having their period that is when you will not see them in school and if you challenge them whenever they return, they will admit to the fact that they decided to stay away from school because of their menstrual period. I don’t know if there is anything the government can do to help us keep our female students in school at all time,” she said pitifully.


Blessing admitted she uses some of her old clothes, which she cut into small sizes and then wet them with a little water before using in place of the sanitary pad.

“I ensure I don’t go out during this period or do not go far to avoid any stain on my cloth,” she added.

Apart from the girl child education, the health and general wellbeing of a girl with poor access to sanitary pad is also at risk. A United Nations Children Fund (UNICEF) supported report revealed that when girls lack access to sanitary materials, they are more likely to suffer from health issues such as vaginal and urinary infections.

Similarly, Dr Adeyemi Olayemi of General Hospital, Moniya, Ibadan, Oyo State, Nigeria, has said that impoverished materials such as fabrics cotton wool, tissue paper and other hygienic materials Nigerian ladies use in place of sanitary pad can cause fungal infections, urinary tract infections, reproduction tract infections and studies have shown a link to cervical cancer

“Just last year December, an 18-year-old girl who lives with her grandmother was brought to our hospital, she complained of whitish vaginal discharge with vaginal itching, a chronic disease she got due to the usage of tissue paper wrapped with clothing materials. She was however given vaginal cream, antibiotics, counselling and follow up,” she narrated.

For some ladies, relief is coming through the help of some non-governmental organisations that often go about distributing free sanitary materials in some schools and communities.

Just in April 2017, Mr Nefe Onohwosa and his crew under the Supporting Her Prime campaign phase one have distributed free sanitary pads to some girls in some schools in Lagos, Owerri, Port Harcourt, Abeokuta and Kaduna parts of Nigeria.

According to the convener, Mr Nefe, “Supporting Her Prime is a non-governmental initiative, borne out of the need to ensure that the average Nigerian girl has access to sanitary pads and also has the knowledge necessary for proper menstrual hygiene.

Also, Mr Oluseyi Odewale, a prominent Nigerian philanthropist through his Facebook page called Kbkonline has disclosed that sanitary pad remains the third most requested item in 2017 by Nigerian women. He further reiterated his intention to aid more Nigerian ladies with sanitary pad this year.



SOURCE: http://www.tribuneonlineng.com/period-poverty-how-nigerian-ladies-struggle-to-afford-sanitary-pad/