by nasir ahmad el

8/3/2019 By Nasir Ahmad El

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WHY EDUCATION CANNOT WAIT

By Nasir Ahmad El-Rufai

As undergraduate students of Quantity Surveying at Ahmadu Bello University in the mid-1970s,

one of our greatest sources of pride was not just the fact that ABU was the largest in Sub-Saharan Africa, but the only university in the whole world that offered honours degrees in QS.Our closest competitors were two polytechnics in the United Kingdom. The University of Readingjoined the league much later. The quality of scholarship was highly rated; researchers andstudents from all over the world jostled for places. Only those who could not secure places inNigeria went abroad for studies.

Today, a ranking of the top 8,000 Universities in the world done last year showed only 5 NigerianUniversities in the first 100 in Africa. Our top universities were: Ilorin (55th Africa, 5,846th -World), Obafemi Awolowo (61st Africa, 6,265th World), Ibadan (63rd Africa, 6,396th World), Jos (74th Africa, 7,000th, World) and University of Lagos (79th Africa, 7,246th

World). What happened? Why and where did things go wrong? And how can we revive the mostcritical component in human capital development?

At independence, Nigerias 56 million people had 15,703 primary schools with a total enrolmentof about 2,912,618 pupils. We had 883 Secondary Schools, 2 Federal Government Colleges, 315Teacher Training Colleges and 29 Technical/Vocational Schools - all with a total enrolment of169,019 students. We had one university college at Ibadan. By the time we became a republic in1963, we had 4 Polytechnics and 5 Universities with a total of 2,445 undergraduate students.

In those days, Nigeria spent an average of 40 percent of her budget on education (compared totodays 2 percent). The Old Western Region under Chief Obafemi Awolowo's visionary leadership

devoted 55% while the Northern Region under an equally committed leadership of Sir AhmaduBello spent 46% of its budget on education.

Things went relatively well until the civil war. By 1970, shortly after the war, a period designatedfor reconstruction by the Federal Government, a few things occurred, which subsequentlyopened the floodgates drowning education today. The Federal Government rolled out a nationalpolicy on education, which among other things introduced universal primary education, leadingto the takeover of all primary and secondary schools previously owned by non-state actors,particularly missionaries. The period coincided with oil boom and the misconception thatthrowing money around was the panacea to national development rather than sustaineddiscipline and upholding standards. The educational sector, like all others also got infected by the

oil boom bug.

By 1980, primary schools had increased to 36,683 with a total enrolment of 13, 760,030 pupilsnationwide. Post-primary schools increased to 5,003 with a total enrolment of 2,366,833 while wehad 42 Colleges of Education, 24 Polytechnics and 17 Universities with a total enrolment of154,392 students. Public spending on education even then averaged about 25% of the budget or7.5% of GDP, and the quality of education remained generally acceptable. It was also an era whenthe authorities tried to refocus educational policies within the purview of the constitution whichplaced education on concurrent list with responsibilities shared between the Federal, state andlocal governments.

The 1980s also witnessed a significant upsurge in the establishment of secondary and tertiaryinstitutions. Within that decade at the onset of the 1990s, the population of the country had


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increased to about 80 million, and public expenditure on education had collapsed to about 8% ofthe national budget, or less than 1% of GDP. The establishment of new tertiary institutions wasmotivated by political considerations rather than qualitative development. Even at the post-primary school level, there was an incessant proliferation of secondary schools without dueattention to quality of facilities, entrance standards and teacher-training.

When the oil money dried up in the mid-1980s, and the introduction of IMF-like austerityprogram appropriately called SAP, funding to education was cut, quality suffered, good teachersfled and entire structure collapsed. The budgetary attitude to education is yet to recover fromthis reversal of fortunes. Since 2007, Nigeria spent an average of about 0.7% of GDP and about 3%of the budget on education - among the lowest 5 ranked countries in the world!

And so we are where we are today. The percentage of enrolment at all levels of education hasincreased, but the overall performance is down. The British Council/Harvard School of PublicHealth Next Generation Report describes the situation: three out of ten graduates of highereducation are not working. A highly educated Nigerian is not significantly more likely to find work

than one with no education at all. Many are also forced to accept jobs that do not use theirqualifications to the fullest. Many educated men and women can only find marginal employmentin sales, agriculture or manual labour.

Compared to other African countries, Nigeria has a lot to do in providing accessible andqualitative education. Oil revenues may have bounced back, but we still have over eight millionchildren out of primary school.

According to a survey by the British Council, Nigeria was supposed to have 16 million students insecondary schools by 2008, but the number enrolled was 5.8 million, suggesting that only 36% ofchildren of secondary age were in school. Out of 1.3 million candidates who wrote the unified

Tertiary Matriculation Examination in 2010, less than 10 percent secured admissions into Nigerianpublic universities!

On October 2, 2006 the then Education Minister and my sister Oby Ezekwesili raised the alarmabout the then only 20% pass rates (including Math and English) of WAEC and NECO, the cabinetthen thought things were so bad that with "We Can" reforms she proposed things would onlyget better! The reforms stalled under her successors, and the situation has expectedly worsened.

That universities no longer have faith in the results of JAMB and now insist on post-UMEexaminations mirrors the inconsistency in the sector, but nothing underscores the issue morethan the 2009 secondary school examinations result released by WAEC and NECO. Both bodies

showed that almost 98% of the candidates failed to clinch five credits, including English andMathematics and only about 2% got five credits with English and Mathematics.

As present, Nigeria has about 117 Universities - owned by the Federal, some states as well asprivate individuals and organisations. Available data indicate that most are poorly equipped andgrossly understaffed. According to the Consortium for Advanced Research Training (CARTA),instead of an academic staff requirement of 45,000 teaching staff, there are 33,000 a shortfallof 12,000 academic staff in our universities. Worse still is the fact that about 12% of the existingmanpower is aged and may soon be retiring, while the quality of replacements are falling.

At the primary level, there is proliferation of privately owned schools charging exorbitant fees

but mostly lacking competent teaching staff and quality infrastructure. In a study by the WorldBank in which attainment of education milestones in 22 countries in Africa were compared, pupils


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in Nigerian primary schools were rated lowest with national mean scores of 30% compared with70% in Tunisia and 51% in very poor Mali. More worrisome is that the Nigerian girl-child is worseoff, particularly in the northern states. Comparatively, while the average Nigerian teenage girl inthe south (example, in Lagos) has the benefit of 10 years of early education, a similar teenage girlin northern Nigeria only has an average of one year! If the northern governors had invested more

in education in the last decade, some of the current social and economic crises we face today inthe region and the country as a whole, might have been averted.

True, Nigeria has been acknowledged by the World Economic Forum to have capacity forinnovation (ranked 47th out of 133), our overall public expenditure on education which is about3% of the current annual budget is abysmal, particularly when compared with about 40% atindependence. Nigeria is placed 128th (WDI 2009), 91st in Internet Access in Schools, 97th inQuality of Mathematics and Science Education,115th in overall Quality of Scientific researchinstitutions, 90th in Networked Readiness Index, 102nd in percentage of Internet users, 117th inBroadband internet subscribers. (ITU WTI, 2008 -2009)

Given that education is a tool for human capital development, how well and fast a nationdevelops is dependent on its literacy level. The accumulation of intellectual capital can help anation strengthen its technology and become prosperous. Even though oil, gold and diamondmay generate wealth for some countries, it is evident that they are no longer determinants ofwealth - intellectual capital and technology rule the world. It is easy to neglect education becausethe consequences are not immediately felt. But if we bear in mind that the current decay are theresults of policies of the mid-1970s and spending cuts of the late 1980s, it becomes imperative forNigeria to urgently review and refocus educational policy, and spending priorities to ensurequality of output.

Apart from reviewing spending levels on education, we must enhance supervision to ensure strict

adherence to standards at all levels. The states and local government areas must take up moreresponsibilities in educational development. More private sector participation should beencouraged with the right incentives - access to free land, single interest-long tenor loans,subsidised teacher training, etc! Political considerations should not be the yardstick inestablishing tertiary institutions. Teachers education and welfare must be improved as priorities.At personal levels, those of us that have had the benefit of affordable and quality publiceducation should all offer to teach voluntarily at the Nigerian university and public secondaryschool nearest to where we live. I have already done so. If we do not act now, consider what willhappen in a generation, when todays semi-literate students will be teachers and professors.

I will conclude with just three facts to reflect on: There are over 60 quality universities in the

Boston area - about half of what we have in the whole country. The United States (with roughlytwice Nigerias population) has a total of 5,758 higher education institutions, an average of 115per state. One private university Harvard has an annual budget that exceeds the 2011 FGNinvestment in education, and its endowment funds were worth $37 billion in 2008! As you readthis, Nigerias total external reserves is about $33.5 billion. We have work to do. The earlier westart, particularly in the northern and other educationally-backward states, the better. And thiswill only start when all public officers and political office-holders are compelled by their oaths ofoffice and terms of appointment to enroll all their children in public primary, secondary andtertiary institutions in Nigeria. That will be some really fresh air indeed.

Nigeria: Rich Country, Poor People By Nasir Ahmad El-Rufai

Posted: August 19, 2011 - 10:55


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If President Goodluck Jonathan had had the courage to publicly declare his assets and that of his

wife, the venerable Dame Patience Jonathan, it would have been possible to use Nigerias first family

to undertake an assessment of the incidence of poverty in the country and explore why one of the

richest countries in the world has some of the poorest people. While we await the president on this

matter, one needs not travel too far to see evidence of poverty; just look around.

Though Nigerias population is three times that of South Africa, our economy is second to theirs inAfrica. We are the 37th largest economy in the world, and 11th in terms of labour force (about 48

million, according to 2010 estimates). So how come we are one of the most impoverished countries

in Africa and the 25th poorest in the world? Global average income is about $25 per person per day,

or $9,000 per annum. In Nigeria, about half of our citizens live under $2 a day on the threshold of

poverty. Two-thirds of the population lives under or around $1.25 a day in extreme poverty. This is

because our economic growth since Independence has bypassed the poor. Reviewing global Gini

coefficients which measure income inequality within nations, Nigeria is one of the most unequal

nations in Africa and the world. And like many other resource-rich nations, our 'enclave growth' has

not led to sustainable job opportunities. This means that our so-called economic growth only

benefits a narrow band of Nigerians whether under dictatorships or democratic rule.

While our economy grew, the incomes of the poor have not, even with the new minimum wage. This

is especially true of the rural and urban poor who together, account for much of Nigerian poverty. At

current rates, it is estimated that by 2015, Nigeria will have more poor people than India and China

who have more than a billion people each. In contrast, China and India have lifted more than 600

million out of poverty in the last twenty years of economic growth. In fact, the World Bank includes

Nigeria in the list of top 15 places with the highest incidence of poverty. Of our 162 million people,

90 million live below the poverty level of $2 a day, despite billions of dollars in oil revenues.

In 1980 only an estimated 27 percent of Nigerians lived in poverty. By 1990, it had grown to 70

percent. In 2010, over 58 percent of our population lived under the new poverty threshold of $1.25

a day. Though unevenly distributed across Nigeria, poverty is higher in north east and less evident in

the southwest. An analysis of public investments in infrastructure and human capital in the north-

east would explain why the region is not only home to flawed elections and economic hopelessness

but the Boko Haram insurgency as well. Indeed, most of the apparent ethnic and religious crises in

the north, and the youth violence and criminality in the south can be linked to increasing economic

inequality and hopelessness due to governance failures!


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Nigerias poor are in two distinct groups: the working and non-working population. Poverty is

prevalent in both rural and urban areas, though large numbers of rural folk constantly migrate to

urban areas in search of work. This is not unconnected to the fact that typical households in rural

areas only cultivate 1 hectare of land annually which is only capable of producing about N80, 000worth of food crops. From this, the household may earn N80, 000 ($500) or N219 per day, for a

family of 6-7 people. Each member of that family lives on approximately N32-37 per day.

Supplementary income from cattle, fishing or other wage labour, does not amount to much.

The urban poor mostly uneducated and unskilled migrants from rural poverty only have their

physical bodies as capital. Urban wages may be higher than the rural, (for the same kind of work,

urban wage rate can be 50100% higher), but workers sometimes end up poorer because most of

their meager earnings is consumed by the higher costs of living. With the new minimum wage, thetypical urban poor earns between N18,000-20,000 (or N240,000 annually). This translates to

approximately N658 per day and in the smaller urban household of 4 would amount to N164 per

person per day - less than the poverty line of N200 a day.

Of our 90 million poor people, 60 million are dependants. This leaves approximately 30 million

working poor whose income has to be raised from the current level of less than N200 to at least

N700 daily. The family system remains the medium of transmission of sustenance for the

unemployed. This is ineluctable for now. Illiteracy and poverty are related; twenty centuries after

the development of scripts and the numeric systems, about 44% of our population still lack basic

literacy and numeracy skills. Though no precise study exists, it is a reasonable guess that illiterates

comprise the poorest income group.

Unemployment is at the heart of Nigerias poverty. There are few activities in the rural areas that

create jobs apart from labour intensive agriculture; even this is seasonal. The landless farm labourers

have little to do in the off-season, unless they seek work in the urban areas. Inadequacy of basic

amenities like clean water, education, and health care further compounds the matter. The poor have

no access to low interest funds, business development services and formalization channels. And

because government lacks functional and effective strategies to fight poverty, one of the richest

countries in the world has some of the poorest people.

This is not to say that successive governments did not try. The Gowon Administration initiated the

first planned effort to tackle poverty in 1972 with a focus on agriculture. The National Accelerated

Food Production Programme (NAFPP) and the Nigerian Agricultural and Co-operative Bank (NACB)

were created to finance agriculture but didnt achieve much. Operation Feed the Nation was

introduced in 1976 but its attempt to woo university undergraduates to rural areas to teach peasant,

and mostly subsistence farmers how to farm failed. In 1979, the Shagari administration launched the

Green Revolution scheme to curtail food importation and boost crop and fibre production, but

compromised it by creating a task force to import rice! By 1983, billions had been wasted on these

efforts with little to show for it.


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In 1984, the Buhari administration introduced Back to Land and tied the issuing of import licenses

to the potential licensee's levels of investment in agriculture. Sadly, the government was overthrown

before the scheme matured. Babangidas government created the Directorate of Food, Roads and

Rural Infrastructure (DFRRI) in 1986. Neither DFRRI, nor the Peoples Bank of Nigeria and the

Community Banks programme made any lasting impact. In 1993 the Abacha government established

the Family Support Programme (FSP) and the Family Economic Advancement Programme (FEAP).

Again, they failed to succeed in tackling poverty. In 2001, President Obasanjo launched the National

Poverty Eradication Programme (NAPEP) with the mandate of developing and coordinating all

poverty eradication initiatives in Nigeria. NAPEP seems to have become a sales agent for Bajaj and

other tricycle manufacturers of India, instead of addressing the fundamentals of poverty - income

inequality, lack of opportunity and support for micro-enterprises.

What are the options before us, and what are the fastest ways of reducing poverty in Nigeria?

An important starting point is to focus on the 30 million working poor who have 60 million

dependants. To lift 90 million people above the poverty threshold of $2 daily, each of the 15 million

households (6 persons per family) must earn $12 daily. This amounts to $65.7 billion annually or

N10.5 trillion. Of this, N7.2 trillion will go to the dependants, but it is unrealistic for government to

give out N7.2 trillion annually. In the absence of a national social safety net or the means to design

one, the way out must be the creation of sustainable opportunities, incentives and better paying

jobs. Macroeconomics alone cannot help without strategic planning and implementation, as well as

targeted microeconomic interventions, which only the CBN governor seems to be doing so far!

Charity, welfare and aid initiatives are not enough, nor do they work. Even if poverty alleviation

funds were collected through taxation or voluntary contributions, it is highly doubtful if they can be

efficiently delivered. Government cannot create enough jobs to absorb the 3 million that join the

workforce every year. Only the private sector can create the jobs needed in our nation. Thus,

government must develop the enabling environment for job creation by others. Inaugurating a job

creation committee and allocating N50 billion to it does not create jobs. The Yar'Adua-Jonathan

approach of creating new agencies and ministries that duplicate the work of another and increasing

the cost of governance without any results will neither reduce unemployment nor poverty.

Agriculture is the biggest employer of labour and we must address policies that promote it. For

instance, the Nigerian Institute of Oceanography and Marine Research says Nigeria spends $800

million on fish importation annually. We spend more to import rice, sugar, vegetable oil, wheat and

other produce we can grow or produce locally. We must save these huge sums and reinvest same in

the Nigerian economy in creative ways.

Infrastructure development is also critical not only in creating construction jobs and reducingpoverty, but providing the enabling environment for the private sector to flourish. Nigeria is


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planning to spend about 1 trillion naira on the Niger Delta Coastal Highway. How many permanent

and seasonal jobs does government plan to generate from the project? It may be useful for

government to insist on knowing how many jobs every million naira in government contracts and

expenditure create. Considering the monumental shortages in our infrastructure sector, it is

surprising that government is yet to conceive an infrastructure master plan and public works

programme capable of creating millions of jobs over the next few years.

Unless we take measures to raise family incomes, create sustainable and better paying job

opportunities, build critical infrastructure, and optimally develop agriculture, Nigeria will remain a

rich nation with very poor people. This is not the destiny of one of the worlds richest countries, and

certainly not what Nigerians deserve. But the political elite may not care for now. After all, the

standards of living they enjoy are equal or higher than the rich in developed nations, with lesser

income inequality like the UK. That was before the protests, riots and looting by largely bored and

unhappy young people a couple of weeks ago. It is time for the political and economic elite to work

on making our incomes more equal, by rewarding entrepreneurship, innovation, honesty and hard

work. Reliance on luck will not take us any further than where we are.

Housing for All under Vision 20:2020? By Nasir Ahmad El-RufaiPosted: September 30, 2011 - 02:54

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In most developing economies, the construction industry not only contributes between 3-8 percent of GDP, but is usually among the top two employers of labour, andNigeria was no exception up until the late 1980s. Building and construction accounted for just about 2.5% of our GDP in 2010, and now employs on a consistent basis,less than a million people - lower than manufacturing. Civil works account for about 30 percent of the industry's output but employs less people, more capital intensive andtherefore dominated by foreign companies.

Housing construction accounts for between 50-60 percent of the sector's output and an even larger proportion of its employment. From professionals like architects andquantity surveyors from the design stage, to bricklayers, carpenters and plumbers during construction, and food vendors to real estate agents, the typical building siteemploys about 200 people over between six and twelve months to build the average family house. That is why many governments invest in public works to inducedemand and stimulate economic activity. Indeed, in some countries, 'housing starts' - the number of new homes under construction is a surrogate for measuring botheconomic activity and business confidence.

A home is a typical family's most desired and prized asset. According primacy to this predisposition, Section 16(1)(d) of the 1999 Constitution of the Federal Republic of

Nigeria under the Fundamental Objectives and Directive Principles of State Policy, expects the State to "provide sustainable and adequate shelter for all citizens."

Successive Nigerian Governments have paid lip service to the foregoing constitutional provision. Consequently, Nigeria sits on a growing housing deficit estimated at 16million housing units a few years ago, in 2006. An even higher number of Nigerians live in either substandard or sub-human accommodations. This grim social reality hasspawned dysfunctional consequences in the macro economy.

The acquisition of a home is usually the single largest investment made by most people in their lifetimes, and home ownership is what catapults people to middle classstatus. Owning a home also presents an opportunity to alienate it and raise money for investment in other real and financial assets, thereby leveraging societal resourcesand encouraging entrepreneurship. Anecdotally, it appears that there is a positive correlation between levels of home ownership and social stability. Societies with highlevels of home ownership like the USA (over 70%), Sweden and Norway (over 80%) tend to have less arson, riots, burglary and similar crimes when compared tocountries with low levels of home ownership such as Nigeria. It is therefore imperative that Nigeria creates an enabling environment for the growth of the housing sub-sector by encouraging widespread home ownership and realizing the attendant social and economic development benefits.

The Federal Housing Authority (FHA) was established in 1973 to build houses for Nigerians, and some of the estates in Festac, Satellite Town in Lagos and Gwarimpa inAbuja are the results of its efforts. But in all, it built just about 43,700 in 38 years, slightly above 1,000 homes annually! Other laudable efforts like that of the Shagariadministration were sabotaged by politics. States governors in opposition to the NPN grudgingly allocated parcels of land that were so way out of town, withoutinfrastructure and basic security. Many state housing corporations' interventions of building low cost houses got captured by politicians and officials, creating morelandlords and tenants rather than the intended beneficiaries owning them.

Home ownership statistics in Nigeria can be misleading, because the more rural a state or settlement, the more likely it will be inhabited by indigenous populations andtherefore a high rate of 'home ownership'. For instance, Jigawa and Kebbi States have "home ownership" figures of over 95%. Lagos and Rivers, the most urbanized
http://saharareporters.com/article/housing-all-under-vision-202020-nasir-ahmad-el-rufaihttp://saharareporters.com/article/housing-all-under-vision-202020-nasir-ahmad-el-rufaihttp://saharareporters.com/article/housing-all-under-vision-202020-nasir-ahmad-el-rufai


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states with a lot more migrants in search of economic opportunities than indigenous populations have "home ownership" rates in the region of 20%. Abuja which liessomewhere in between has a reported home ownership rate of 57%. But is it real ownership or just owner-occupier? This question needs to be asked because of theproblem of title to land, restrictions on registration and transferability of title, and the absence of a mortgage system in Nigeria.

What is the federal government doing to boost the housing sector? What about the states and local governments? Is housing a matter for federal intervention at all,bearing in mind that land is mostly vested in State and Local Governments? What can be done to kick-start the housing sector?

The federal government budgeted N36.7 billion this year for the Federal Ministry of Lands and Housing, but not to build any houses. N3.55 billion is for salaries andoverheads. The capital budget of N33.1 billion is an interesting assortment of dodgy projects - for instance a borehole in Chikun, a town hall in Damaturu, street light inOkporo and market stall in Sumaila. Over N1.1 billion was budgeted for land acquisition. So if the federal government has little or no land, what does this ministry of"housing" exist for? When the FG builds a town hall, what will the local government chairman do? What criteria enabled the selection of these locations and excludeothers? Not one naira was budgeted for the intervention agency, the FHA!

Perhaps the most successful state programme of mass housing is the one initiated in the FCT by my predecessor, Mohammed Abba Gana, and built upon by ouradministration. The programme entailed provision of conditional titles to land to estate developers, with FCT undertaking primary infrastructure, and development ofhomes for sale to citizens. Title is then given to each individual buyer. That was how most of Nbora, Galadimawa, Dutse and Lokogoma districts were planned andallocated. More than 20,000 housing units were completed in 5 years - nearly half of what FHA did in nearly 40 years. More could have been achieved if we had providedmore primary infrastructure and given similar allocations in the satellite towns.

In 2010, the CBN reported that only 8.7 percent of credit to the pri vate sector went to the real estate subsector, down from 8.9 percent in 2009. The total loans andadvances by all the mortgage banks in Nigeria was just N124 billion! Housing finance is up to 90% of a typical bank's balance sheet in developed countries. But this ratioin the consolidated balance sheet of Nigerian banks is perhaps no more than 1%. These dismal statistics draw attention to a serious macroeconomic under performancein a sector with proven capacity and global antecedents to sustain high GDP, job creation and double-digit growth rates for many decades to come.

The inability of tens of millions of Nigerians to become home owners despite the phenomenal expansion of credit in our banking system is directly linked to theircorresponding inability to meet lenders' main condition precedent to disbursement in the form of a collateral that meets lenders' legal and regulatory obligations.

Consequently, this incapacitation translates into poverty forced down on one generation of Nigerians, which it passes to the next, ad infinitum. To break this cycle ofpoverty, government intervention is required to sponsor an agency that will issue first time home borrowers with mortgage insurance, which would serve as their collateralfor obtaining mortgage loans from loan originators.

To increase the affordable home ownership rate against the recent progress made by Nigeria in issuing Sub-Saharan Africa's first Mortgage-Backed Bond to part financethe sale of Federal Government Houses in Abuja in April 2007, the following gaps will need to be closed urgently to meet the constitutional provisions requiringgovernment to provide shelter for all Nigerian citizens:

First is the completion of the National Identification Project to accurately identify every Nigerian citizen. This was started in 2007 and was to cost about N5 billion and fully-funded by the private sector. This week, the government announced that it will cost N30 billion and funded from our lean treasury!

Second is the renaming of the FHA as the Federal Mortgage Insurance Corporation, with its statutory charter and legislation changed from housing construction or supply,to provision of mortgage insurance for affordable housing. Thirdly, the urgent passage, by the National Assembly, of the Foreclosure and Securitization Bills submitted 4years ago, and finally the enactment of Constitutional Amendments affecting the Land Use Act (1978) to remove the Governors' dual statutory consent to assign and tomortgage, once the underlying root title has been issued ab-initio. The National Assembly has had this request before it for over 4 years.

With these steps, every Nigerian citizen with a job should be eligible to borrow and buy a home, or build one and pay at single digit interest rates over 15 to 25 years. Andcritically, states and local governments must provide Social Housing since not everyone can afford a home regardless of whatever mortgage system we have in place.

We must address the high cost of building materials. The global average for the price of a 50kg bag of cement is about 3 5 dollars, or about 450 to 750 naira, but inNigeria, it ranges between N2,600 and N3,000 each. Beyond prices of materials, we must try to ensure that a larger percentage of building materials are sourced locallyand competitively. This is imperative in view of the fact that building materials constitute about 55-65 percent of total cost of construction of houses.

Meanwhile, whatever happened to the National Housing Fund (NHF) to which Nigerian workers earning N3,000 per annum or more contribute 2.5% of their basic income?Out of the N72 billion fund, Estate Development Loans equal N42 billion had been disbursed. This money should have built at least 8 million homes at about N5 millioneach, so the simple question is: where are the houses or estates?

It may be true that Jonathan had no shoes, but at least he had a home. Mr. President, can we at least trust you to deliver housing to the millions of our homelesscountrymen?

by nasir ahmad el

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