One of the basic needs of human beings is to provide shelter for themselves and it comes as no surprise that there is a huge demand on housing provision for Nigerians given the much vaunted but largely unsubstantiated claim of a population in excess of 140 million people. The poverty level, corruption and weak institutions prevalent in the country have made housing provision tough for Nigerians and contributed to the development of slums across the country. Lagos state has the added burden of providing housing for the teeming population of people who arrive Lagos daily from the different parts of the world and it therefore comes as no surprise that Lagos has probably the most number and worst slums in the country. This is exacerbated further by the fact that apart from the government of Mr. Lateef Jakande that tried to tackle the problem of housing head on by providing affordable housing, successive governments have at best only scratched the surface of the problem when not busy building low quality houses that are not that are not affordable by average Lagosians.

In dealing with the issues of slum, successive governments have always resorted to slum demolition without providing alternative accommodation. In Lagos today, there is hardly any 1-mile radius without its own slum. The present government cannot be blamed for these slums but it has an opportunity to arrest the development of slums just as it tries to improve living standard across the state with its beautification effort and provision of roads and drainages. The opportunity Lagos has is because it has a large population of the middle class that emerged from the Obasanjo era (this class is being decimated daily by Mr. Yar Adua) and this class of people generally have good education with great exposure.

While acknowledging that the Fashola administration has tried to address infrastructure decay and provision – both of which are ingredients of slum creation - I would like to submit that selling of land (whether Government, private developer or Omo Onile) directly to individuals in large numbers as we presently have across the nation cannot solve the problem of slums in Lagos as we have seen in Magodo, Park View Estate, Lekki Phase 1, Banana Island and several other places. The two simple reasons why this approach won’t prevent slums are that:

· Land is a means to an end, the land is not useful without a property on it and

· There is no way to ensure that each land owner develops his/her property.

We have seen cases where even with infrastructure already provided, squatters still take over the properties. I would readily admit that if houses are built without cost of the property and demand being matched with the demands of the citizens, you may still have squatters’ invasion like Gwarimpa Estate in Abuja especially when you cannot secure the estate. One of the problems with selling land is that people may just hold on to it waiting for it to appreciate and sell off or they may just genuinely become broke after buying the property and we all know that it takes just a couple of bare lands to deface a prime estate or even invite squatters to build their shacks.

The alternative of delivering houses to people is capital intensive and will require more time to develop but in my opinion, it is the best strategy for solving housing problems. The advantage of this is that infrastructure such as roads, water, sewage, refuse, power and telecoms can be planned. Even in so called luxury estates in Lagos today, there is a high probability of your drinking water source usually borehole being polluted by your neighbour’s septic tank especially with the absence of regulators. Delivering finished/shell houses to customers will also help the aesthetic value of the environment, provide jobs for citizens, help develop construction skills, involve experts in building development, ease the work of regulators, develop regulations as well as help Government to plan the development of new areas.

The worry for most government has always been how to source the fund and my simple answer is that Government should not provide any fund but concern itself with standards, regulations and providing a conducive environment. My suggestion which is not novel will involve the public private partnership. It will involve Government allocating parcels of land to tested construction companies who will seek for customers, build houses, provide infrastructure and recoup their money through sales. Estate services firms should also be contracted to provide maintenance services for such estates to avoid a repeat of the Jakande housing scheme. The Government will make its own money and recover land cost through property tax on residents. The cost of land is easy to determine and will be cheaper since it’s direct from Government and the length of time to recover the land cost should be done such that the burden on subscribers is realistic. This suggestion will also not affect hinder Government cash flow since most Government land is acquired and subscribers will be paying property tax. The advantage of job creation, exportable skilled manpower, well developed estates and decent housing at little or no cost should also be an incentive to Government. It will also free up cash which is otherwise tied down while people build their houses which usually takes several years to complete although it will mean less avenue for Civil servants to cut deals on getting C of O, Governor’s consent and other land documents for clients.

To prevent the construction companies from creating their own racket, Government should ensure that each subscriber has the Lagos state tax identification number and employer/business should be documented so that houses are sold to owner occupiers in most cases rather than house speculators. This scheme will also reduce the nuisance of land speculators who currently add no value to the property development and also that of estate agents who have no other skill than putting “To Let / For Sale” on people’s properties and looking for 10% commission. The tendency for the primitive acquisition of wealth by looters may also be reduced since Government will gets its property tax whether the property is occupied or not and it may not make sense to continue servicing a property that brings no income as against the present regime where the owner is content to leave the property and continue more primitive acquisition since there is no service cost.

Lagos and Ogun State can easily benefit from the scheme as they have the population of upwardly mobile young men and women who can afford their own homes if they are encouraged by the Government. These are the same young men and women who have taken bank loans to buy new cars and other things for themselves and are paying back these loans comfortably. Some of these people earn over 5 million per annum especially bankers, Telecoms and Oil/Gas workers but are scared to go into properties because of the risk of getting genuine land. While the money spent on cars is mostly capital flight to other countries, monies spent on property development will ensure job creation in our own economy.

The jobs created by the construction companies will attract artisans to go and improve their skills from our vocational skills. A look at some of the Estates that have delivered houses like Northern Foreshore in Lekki, Marwa Gardens, UPDC Estates will tell you that they are head and shoulders above even Park view, Lekki Phase 1 and others where co-operation is always a challenge and residents association meeting are always a problem. Until Governments across the country start to deliver houses, people will develop slums everywhere in order to avoid shylock landlords. Delivering of houses may also save people’s lives as we all know that selling lands leads to more dispute than any other thing in this country and our people are ready to go to any extent to secure lands even if it means killing the other party. 

Robot  # 1 | 26.07.2009 07:40

Until Governments across the country start to deliver houses, people will develop slums everywhere in order to avoid shylock landlords. Delivering of houses may also save people’s lives as we all know that selling lands leads to more dispute than any other thing in this country and our people are ready to go to any extent to secure lands even if it means killing the other party....Read the full article.

jlebile  # 2 | 26.07.2009 17:00

Overhauling what has now become a culture and placing emphasis on social security and protection of human dignity by for example providing housing is a good thing. This is not the same as justifying the haphazard irresponsible degradation of our environment and living conditions. If you think about it, unplanned housing, lack of regulation, lack of structure, lack of system- (where people do what they like because of the breakdown of the role of the local government) are detrimental to our communities and also create problems like flooding in areas where illegal structures block waterways. The way out for Lagos State Government is to restore the local authorities to the positions they held around 30 to 40 years ago. Then refuse was collected, water was running, roads were good, environments were clean and the society functioned!