Stories by Maduka Nweke
But for the cumbersome processes required of would-be home-owners to go through before certifying that their buildings are safe from government caterpillars and pail-loaders, the acute housing deficits in Lagos State would have been reduced.
But while most businessmen and women who are financially stable detest paying rent to others, they prefer to do whatever they can to get a land where they will build their own houses. This gives them the freedom to use their premises as they wish. They plant flowers to compliment what the frontline musician, Oliver de Coque, said that tenant does not plant flowers because the landlord can eject him at any time but in his own house, if he cares, he can create flower beds right in his living room.
Apart from this freedom, there is also the joy of ownership that attracts you home no matter how late you close from your place of work or business or wherever your daily itinerary takes you. No one can lock you out or give you some of the egocentric rules that remind you that your freedom is limited. Your freedom in your compound is as you desire.
But the rigours of the rules of obtaining land documents do not only regulate people’s joy and freedom, they also, to a large extent, retard development because those who would want to build their own houses would have to first secure the certificate of occupancy (C of O) with other signings and dotting that are not easy to finish. With these processes, people are discouraged from putting up their own buildings and that for sure increases the primitive “face me I face you” apartments that still adorn even the most urbanised cities in Nigeria.
These undue bottlenecks in securing land titles and documentations in major cities in Nigeria, especially Lagos, have been identified as a major clog in the wheel of the state’s effort at ensuring affordable and habitable housing for its teeming population.
It is often said that Nigeria has a housing deficit of 17 million, but Mr. Yacoob Abiodun, an urban planner, planning advocate and pioneer Secretary, Federal Housing Policy Council, stated that Nigeria has an urgent necessity for reliable housing data. He said that experts have brandied the 17 million deficit figure as the authentic figure of the housing shortages in the country, but “all is mere fallacy as it could not be supported by any verifiable data.”
According to him, as alarming as the figure is, one may be tempted to ask: “What is the source of the data? How was the figure arrived at? Was any research done? Who or which institution spearheaded the study? I am asking these relevant questions as a result of my personal experience,” he said recently.
He, therefore, posited that of the 17 million housing units needed to satisfy the accommodation needs of Nigerians, Lagos State alone could take more than seven million housing units and will need far above 287,500 new homes over the next five years to meet the needs.
Experts in housing and urban development sector, who spoke at an Urban Housing Talk on Lagos Homs organised by Heinrich Boll Stiftung in Lagos, said the state’s dream of meeting the two million housing units deficit will continue to be a mirage until the government sees less of monetary gains on land and title documentations.
The state Commissioner for Housing, Prince Gbolahan Lawal, recently said that the state has introduced a rent-to-own policy, along with the construction of mass houses to reduce the gap. The policy, he said, provides a way for low and medium income earners to pay for houses within 10 years at six per cent interest rate. He also revealed government’s plan to construct 50 housing units in all of the 20 Local Council Areas and 37 Local Council Development Areas (LCDAs).
But the Project Director of Arctic Infrastructure, a private Lagos-based organisation with focus on infrastructure, urban development and environment, Mr. Lookman Oshodi, noted that public participation will not work without first dealing with the cumbersome nature of security tenure prevalent in the state.
According to him, if states like Lagos can assure citizens and developers of easier access of titles and land documents, the huge housing deficits would be reduced. He stressed that insecurity of tenure or lack of evidence of documentation that can be used as a proof of secured tenure has robbed the state of several housing units that could have added to the efforts of the state government.
According to him, this is so when security of tenure is one of the indicators of habitable housing. He stressed that government alone cannot provide the needed housing units for over 4661,194 households in the state, urging the state government to work out a modality that will reduce the cost and stress involved in securing titles and land documentation in the state.
Another expert in infrastructure, urban and international development, who has worked on various housing and urban projects with several international NGOs, agreed that many developers have discarded social housing scheme because of the huge cost paid to government agencies.
Also, former Chairman of Lagos State branch of the Nigerian Institution of Estate Surveyors and Valuers (NIEVS), Mr. Sola Fatoki, posited that the cost of security of tenure and titles should be reduced while government makes land available for investors to mitigate the gap in housing units in the state. The estate surveyor and principal partner of Sola Fatoki & Company, said social housing could only be possible when government sees less of land documentation and titles as a means of generating money.
“Social housing is not possible in Nigeria with the rigorous and cumbersome documentation process in Lagos and other Nigerian states,” he said. He therefore called on the Federal and State Governments to improve on the available housing stocks and review all housing programmes in the country with a view to making it affordable for the majority of its citizens as well as encourage private developers by giving them incentives and lands.