Copyright tribuneonlineng
Mr. Toye Eniola is the Executive Secretary of the Association of Housing Corporations of Nigeria (AHCN), the umbrella body for all states’ housing agencies. In this interview with DAYO AYEYEMI, the affordable housing advocate identifies some of the challenges inhibiting the housing agencies from living up to their statutory responsibilities. Excerpts: What is the state of housing corporations in Nigeria? The state of housing corporations in Nigeria is not very encouraging because most of them are not doing well. They are not doing well in the sense that they are not living up to their legal responsibility in terms of being the state housing agency. There are other issues regarding that. We are not getting adequate support from government, and most of the state housing corporations have been relegated to the background because the institutional and financial supports required are not there. So, there are very few of them that are currently working and performing their statutory responsibility. What are the causes of these challenges? Where are the issues coming from? Well, you know, in the past, government used to have allocations for housing development. But in the very recent past, government resources are no longer enough to make provision for direct housing development. You also know that housing construction demands huge financial outlay. And because things are changing, the economy is going haywire, leaving government with few resources. You know, in the recent past, some of the state governments were even finding it difficult to pay staff salaries. So certainly, money for housing development has become an issue. As a result, that aspect of governance has been relegated to the background. State governments will only intervene when they have money. In the process, most of these housing corporations have been relegated to the background. Don’t forget that the current National Housing Policy, which I think is the 2012 edition, clearly gave room for public participation in housing. The one that was done in 2001 during the Mabogunje Committee also gave room for public participation in housing development. Since that time, most of the state governments have leveraged that policy to invite private developers to build for the state. Remember, housing corporations are statutory organisations set up by law; they are supposed to be the representative of each state to do housing development. In other words, private developers are supposed to be in partnership with state housing corporations. But what most state governments are doing now is to make the private developers interact directly either with the governor’s office or the Ministry of Housing. In the process of doing this, state housing corporations are now relegated to the background and rendered redundant. What the state housing corporations ought to be doing has been taken over by ministries. Why is this happening? We are not saying that ministries should not be involved. What we are saying is that whatever interventions they want to have in housing development should be rooted through the statutory agency of government — which is the state housing corporation. This brings a lot of confusion because when ministries are building and private developers are reporting to the governor’s office, the state housing corporations are relegated to the background and rendered redundant. This is what is happening in most of the states right now. What happens to the civil servants attached to these state housing corporations? You mean they come to the office without doing anything? You know, most of the state governments are not complaining. And I want to believe that some of them are selfish, because they know that these are the bodies that are set up statutorily for housing development. Yet they bypass them to give their responsibility to another agency. With that, it becomes a problem for these people, and some of them are just there collecting salaries, doing nothing. You complained that the ministries have taken over the role of housing corporations. What should have been the role of the state ministries? Statutorily, the state ministries are policy makers. They are supposed to give directions to what happens in development. The housing corporations are the principal agencies set up primarily to do the development of housing. So, the ministry is supposed to give them policy directions, guide them on how to go about it, and give them the institutional support required to make them function. They created an organisation but didn’t allow it to function. So this is where we are. Have you met governors in their forum to discuss the housing corporations’ challenges? For the past three to four years now, we’ve been trying to meet with the Governors’ Forum so that we can put this across to them, but it’s been very difficult for us to reach out. We have written to the secretariat so we can address the governors’ forum, but unfortunately, it’s been difficult. We know that during the COVID-19 period up to about 2022, the governors were rarely meeting physically. But since they started meeting physically, attempts have been made to reach out to them so that they will have an understanding of what we are talking about. Of course, in every State of Housing Address that we’ve been doing for the past four years, this issue has continued to be mentioned. We sent those addresses to all the governors, but we don’t know whether they have time to actually read and study them. This is where the problems are. We have good ideas that can help us resolve issues, but people at the helm of affairs are not just listening. What has been the scorecard of the state housing corporations in the last two years? Can we know the number of housing units that have been developed?Well, we have a scorecard of what has been done, though I don’t have all those figures directly with me now. In this year’s address that we did, apart from Lagos, the majority of the other state housing corporations didn’t do anything. For instance, Abia didn’t do anything this year and even last year. We even have some states that have merged their state housing corporations with the ministries. What that means is that even the housing corporations in those states are not in existence. We have states like Nasarawa and Bauchi that have merged. I think Taraba State too has merged the housing corporation with the ministry. You will discover that in most of these states, they are rarely doing anything, and whatever they are doing is through the ministry. I heard that AHCN is planning a partnership with REDAN on affordable housing provision. Where are you on that? We have a very good working relationship with REDAN. We don’t have a direct partnership engagement, but we always work together to see how we can expand housing provision in Nigeria. I am aware that REDAN was trying to do 108 units in local governments in conjunction with the Federal Ministry of Housing and Urban Development. How far they have gone with that, I can’t say. Are you not concerned that the Federal Ministry of Housing is not initiating any partnership with your organisation? We saw the minister sometime this year, and that issue was raised. The minister promised to work on something with the association, and I’m optimistic that very shortly something is going to start in partnership with the Federal Ministry of Housing and Urban Development. But of course, you know that the major challenge we have in the sector is certainly funding. We have various options available to us. About two weeks ago, we had a meeting with Shelter Afrique on how they want to enter into a partnership to fund housing development in each state. As an association, we can only find a way to see how funds are made available for this purpose. But then, it’s another thing for the states to take advantage of what is available. That’s one of our responsibilities as an association — trying to push these people to take advantage of the funding opportunities that are open. Before a state housing corporation can do that, they need the support of their government. They need the clearance from the state Houses of Assembly. This is one of the reasons we have been clamouring for a change in most of the laws that establish the housing corporations. What happens to the laws? Most of them are outdated and need to be reviewed. Is there any plan to lobby legislators to effect the review of these obsolete housing laws? Luckily, we belong to the Housing Development Advocacy Network (HDAN), and we are working in partnership with that organisation to see how we can lobby to get this across to the National Assembly. Because most of these laws are enacted at the state level, if we can get it done from the federal level, then it will be a little bit easier to take to the states. We are lobbying to see how we can get this done. You agree with me that this has been a need. For instance, if you look at the National Housing Fund enacted in 1992, up till now we have not been able to get it reviewed. A lot of work has gone ahead, but we are waiting for the approval of the National Assembly. What do you think are the practical solutions to some of the challenges you listed? One, we need a pragmatic approach — a deliberate approach. We can’t handle this without government because that’s what all of these housing corporations are interested in. We need a direction from the top. Those at the top must be interested in housing, and it must be a deliberate approach. There are so many issues involved. If government wants to do anything, how affordable are these houses going to be? That is why this thing has to start from the top with a deliberate approach to determine how to go about it. If government decides to build one million housing units, all it needs to do is adopt a deliberate approach. How are they going to get the funding for it? Because if we have to rely on funds from the local market, you can’t build houses with the kind of exchange rate that is available. The Federal Mortgage Bank of Nigeria doesn’t have enough capacity to provide funding for such projects. And that’s why we’ve been clamouring for the capitalisation of FMBN so that they can have enough capital to inject into the sector.
