All the shining buildings in Abuja can’t mask the city’s underbelly of ever-growing poverty as can be seen in the shanty developments that are dotted around the capital’s outskirts.
Today, Al Jazeera ran a spotlight on how Abuja residents on low incomes are being priced out of their homes through higher rents, and are unable to even dream about moving into any of the new developments springing up. There is close to zero social housing for people on low incomes. These are usually referred to in Nigeria as “low cost” housing.
In the days of President Shehu Shagari from 1979 to 1983, the federal government launched an ambitious National Low-Income Housing Programme. It aimed to deliver 200,000 housing units each year, partnering with state governments who provided the land. Nigerians could buy the homes via loans from the public-owned Federal Mortgage Bank.
Those homes still remain today in states such as Lagos, Kaduna, Enugu and Kano. They are known as “Shagari Quarters” in some states and known as “Federal Housing Estate” in Enugu. That ambition to build 200,000 homes each year was cut short by a military coup in 1983 and nothing of a similar scale has been tried ever since.
According to official figures, the country needs 28m homes to meet demand and Abuja accounts for about 10% of that demand. Nigerian banks offer precious little commercial lending in the form of mortgages, hardly surprising with interest rates of around 26.5%. This means owning property is beyond the reach of the majority.
The programme revealed that property prices in Abuja rival cities in the developed world. With a minimum wage of about $2 a day, there’s no chance for those on low incomes to either own or rent decent accommodation in the capital.
Property developers blame infrastructure and the cost of land for high property prices. They have to bear the costs of building roads, providing water and electricity in any new development – such basic amenities have long been abandoned by the government. Such costs are added to the price of property, resulting in interest only from high earners.
The dire situation is turning Abuja into a picture of inequality, contrasting luxury towers and informal settlements. Rather than intervene to remedy the situation, successive governments concentrate on demolishing the homes of the poor in those informal settlements, with no regard for where those people should go, even those with children.
The Nigerian constitution states in Chapter 2, Section 16(2)(d) that government at all levels has an duty towards ensuring “that suitable and adequate shelter …. are provided for all citizens”.
Nigerian governments at federal and state levels, including the Federal Capital Territory of Abuja need to start taking seriously their obligations under a constitution that they swore to uphold. This means coming up with practical policies that will ensure that there is suitable and adequate shelter for those on low incomes.
To widen access to affordable housing, steps need to be taken along the lines of what Shagari attempted over 40 years ago. These include:
- a government house-building programme for those on low income,
- a government-backed or owned mortgage scheme with affordable interest rates,
- some form of means-tested government support for those in the private rental market,
- a shared ownership scheme in which government shares the equity in a home with individuals, making the percentage of the equity owned by the individual affordable.
- Serious consideration should be given at state and municipal levels to introduce rent controls to curtail soaring rents.
None of these seem to be on the agenda because government in Nigeria just isn’t “for the people”.
