The Nigerian Village Square - Constraints In Building A House In Some Of Our Cities

Constraints In Building A House In Some Of Our Cities

Written by Ossie Ezeaku

Tuesday, 16 October 2007

From the cave-man era to the present, the importance of a shelter over man's head cannot be over-emphasized. It manifests in his everyday life. The act of erecting a shelter, exclusive of that whose objective was to make profit, does not signify the abundance of money, but the pursuit of one of the basic necessities of human life.

The founding of the UN-Habitat for Humanity in Vancouver, 1978, was in consonant with this vision. A humane and incisive endeavor geared towards the provision of shelters to the less privileged people of the third world . This is an organ of the UN whose funds are sourced from the rich nations, charity organizations and the very rich individuals around the globe. In this way the body has been able to construct free homes in rural Africa, Latin America and the South East Asia. That explains the importance of a physical structure within which to hide our heads.

Thus every leader, at any level of administration, must not under what ever guise, arrest the efforts of his subjects towards achieving this basic human need. Anything contrary to this would tantamount to tyranny. And not only that, the bet that such a leader would fade away in infamy was certain.

The efforts of the Yar' Adua administration in this wise must be commended. The President is undoubtedly of the informed opinion that building a home does not exemplify abundance, and that the right to a shelter is an inalienable human right, as enshrined in the UN Charter. His decision to rescind the policy that gave birth to high cement prices in Nigeria was only a testimony to these ideals. What's more, in a country where there is a high percentage of homelessness, and where income support was the least on the public sectors' agenda.

In fact, so much are the intrigues that militate against housing-for-all in Nigeria that It may take a while for so many to understand the depth of the problem. The high cost of building materials is just one part of it. Less often does the Nigerian press talk about these other factors that include the dubious levies imposed on private home developers in the Nigerian cities of Port-Harcourt, Lagos and some times in Onitsha..

In Lagos state, as soon as the first sand is shovelled in your newly acquired piece of land, emerges this informal group, "Omonile", which literally translates to sons-of-the-soil or indigenes. Quickly and in an unfriendly manner, they will roll out their levies for each stage of the construction of your building. Usually as follows:

Perimeter fencing: 25.000 Naira and a bottle of Gin, preferably the Schnapps brand, for the "blessing" of the fence.

Foundation of the building: 25.000 Naira and a bottle of Gin for the "blessing" of the foundation of your building.

Reinforced concrete decking: 25.000 Naira and a bottle of Gin for the "blessing" of the concrete decking.

Roofing: 25.000 Naira and a bottle of Gin for the "blessing" of the roof of your house.

That is One hundred thousand Naira in total. This is an amount of money that can easily purchase over 1000 moulded blocks. Note that at any due stage this amount was not paid, they would "stop work", usually with brute force. Having paid all these, you're not yet free. Each trip of sand of any kind brought into the site attracts an additional levy of 250 Naira.

Though there is one exclusion from these draconian building levies-- the indigene of Lagos state. The levies are targeted only to non-indigenes. And when I sat one of these Omoniles down to find out the reason(s) for the exemption. "Haa Oga", he roared in his husky voice, stooping courteously before me. "We can not levy an Omonile (indigene) to build on his ancestral land, the gods would not be happy with us", he explained. On hearing this, I was spell bound.

For the first time, I realized that these individuals I thought were a bunch of uneducated brutes had moral limits. Though his explanation did not justify their actions, as the problems besetting housing in Nigeria will continue to multiply with their type of actions..

However, It did not alter my initial conclusions which were illuminated by the widely held opinion that acts of touting were mainly synonymous with the uneducated, or at worst the educated who have lost touch with the realities of the time.

The quest for owning a home is quite a universal one; it cuts across of every spectrum of sources of livelihood. From the very rich business mogul to the local palm wine tapper. Besides the very rich, the realization of the dream of owning a home is a tall one in Nigeria.

In the absence of easy access to loans, It takes an average Nigerian years to complete and move into his home. Coupled with the fact that they don't have a bag full of money prior to the commencement of the building project. In this way the project would have to rely on what trickles out of their endeavors at each point in time to keep it in progress.

The difficulties involved in self-financing a building project underscored a recent announcement by the Lagos state government. The governor revealed the existence of hundreds of uncompleted buildings scattered all over his state. Subsequently, he expressed the worry that criminals are converting most of these structures into their hide-outs.

In the face of the aforementioned problems, and the rising number of homeless men, women and young girls who are forced to sleep in the streets where they are vulnerable to rape and other forms of violence, restraint must be shown by those in leadership.

In their words and in their actions, they must tread carefully on the issue of housing development. Any policy that will throw spanner in the peoples efforts at sheltering themselves must be discouraged.

The actions of the so called Omoniles of Lagos, Port Harcourt and Onitsha must not be allowed to become a standard practice in any part of Nigeria. No matter the excuses. It is retrogression.

Robot Robot is offline
Villager


	# 1 It began with the early-man. Hissurroundings were that whichcalled for asafe ...Read the full article. Posted by Robot\| 15.10.2007 21:58

Shoko Loko Bangoshe Shoko Loko Bangoshe is offline
Villager


	# 2 Ossie, Interesting article on a very important but rarely talked-about subject. For me, the problem of the omo'nile isn't just that they charge what they charge - it is the unpredictability of the charges, and the fact that even after your house is complete, they may still return to charge money later on. I don't actually believe it is in their interest to do this - the more arbitrary the rules governing a transaction in an are, the less willing people are going to be to do business in that area. Unfortunately, the omo'nile take a rather short-sighted view towards this. I can understand why they would return again and again to charge money - for many people, land is a very emotive issue, as it is the main connection that they have with an area. However, it is unfair to give the impression of an outright sale and then return for extra payments. What the omo'nile should do is to offer the prospective land user long term leases so that both parties still retain an interest in the land. The other issue you mentioned that I was interested in was the issue of uncompleted buildings. This is usually because the prospective homeowner runs out of money midway into the housing project. This could be solved if banks and other financial institutions were prepared to offer mortgage loans where the repayment is rspread out over many years. Then the homeowner would have all the money he needs to complete the house upfront. The problem is that historically, there haven't been many institutions in Nigeria that have the huge sums of money to lend and that are prepared to wait for twenty to thirty years to recoup the interest on a loan. Perhaps this will now change if people believe that the present civilian administration offers more political stability (allowing for long-term planning). Also, the funds that are now available due the Pension Scheme may be used to provide mortgage loans in the future, although there would still need to be credit bureaus to mitigate the risk of providing such long term loans. But in the absence of all this, Nigerians can still try to be a bit sensible in how they execute their building projects. I remember during my NYSC in Jos where I came across this estate that had about 120 or so uncompleted houses. I thought it would have been better for the owner of the estate to phase the project so that in each phase, he completed 30 houses. At least, that way he could have been earning revenue on some houses which he could have used to complete the rest. In the same way, it makes more sense for a Nigerian to design his house so that it can be built in phases. Rather than attempt a grandiose palace at one go, he can decide to start off with a room and parlour, then once he has occupied that, he can add rooms as money permits until the house is complete. (Incidentally, this is what used to happen in Nigerian traditional housing delivery.) Posted by Shoko Loko Bangoshe\| 16.10.2007 05:48

Chief Kalu Chief Kalu is offline
Villager


	# 3 =Robot;209178581>It began with the early-man. Hissurroundings were that whichcalled for asafe ... Shelter really means much to us. No one lives on top of a tree. We all live in houses. The form is secondary here. We all aspire to own houses, if not for our personal comfort, it will be for commercial purpose. On the issue of levies, the local and state governments are not helping matters. In Rivers State, the levies do not end with the indigens. Infact, it is endless. The indigenes collect-bush entry of between 50,000 t0 100,000 before you can see the land. After purchase you are levied-marching ground fee, youth development levy, community development levy, Elders and chiefs council levy,fencing permit,security levy ett. This can amount to hundreds of thousands.After the indigenes, the local govt comes in. An area like Obio/Akpor l.g.a. has these levies- site inspection, site coverage, building certificate, registeration, approval, commencement levy, clearance levy, health approval levy, processing fee etc. Local government approval fees can amount to three hundred thousand.One embezzler just hits back of his head, comes up with one funny name and attaches money value to it and it becomes a levy, paid mostly by non-indigenes.Pathetic is to say the least. The state housing/urban dev. takes it up from there. The poor developer coughs out another hundreds of thousands. Who can own a house in this kind of situation? Only those who are lucky to be working in the oil industry. Now that we have militancy problem and people are losing their jobs. Maybe we will all turn homeless one day. All these levis are rarely accounted for by anybody. No one can lay claims of any tangible developmental projects being embarked upon by the authorities collecting these levies year in year out. Its really sad. Howsing for all by the year 2020 is really achievable! True! Posted by Chief Kalu\| 16.10.2007 08:00

Last Updated ( Thursday, 24 April 2008 )

< Prev		Next >

[ Back ]