Vaccant, expensive houses
- I move 135 kilometers daily to work – Public civil servant
- Some landlords insist on two-year rent upfront plus agency fees, inspection fees, legal fees, damage deposit fees, and maintenance fees – Mrs. Igah, widowed civil servant
By Gom Mirian
In Nigeria’s 32-year old Federal Capital Territory, FCT, Abuja, the search for affordable accommodation has driven many civil servants and private sector employees who work in the city center to the suburbs and neighboring Nasarawa and Niger states.
However, accommodation issues in the FCT cannot be completely attributed to the housing shortage as thousands of vacant houses are scattered all over the FCT mostly as a result of the high cost of renting them.
Apart from inflation and high cost of building materials, the dwindling number of residential accommodation owing to their conversion to commercial uses is also putting pressure on homeowners to increase rents.
Mrs. Rosemary Igah, is a civil servant working with the Federal Ministry of Interior but due to the high cost of rent in FCT, Rosemary had moved her family to Akwanga which is 134.1 kilometers away from the nation’s capital, Abuja.
Mrs. Igah who is a widow with four children, said she leaves her house for work by 5.30 am every day in order to beat the perennial gridlock on the Keffi-Abuja road adding that she goes through this stress on daily basis because she cannot afford the high cost of house rent in the FCT.
She said, “It is not that there are no houses in Abuja. I tell you some can even go a year without being rented but the issue is that people, especially civil servants like me can’t afford them.
“But if I had wanted to rent a house in my desired place in Abuja I would be spending more than 90% of my annual income to pay even for one year and some landlords insist on two years’ rent upfront, plus agency fees, inspection fees, legal fees, damage deposit fees, and maintenance fees.
“If I decide to live in Abuja where I work, then I will have to trade off my children’s education, which doesn’t make sense.
“Although moving almost 135 kilometers every day from Akwanga to Abuja every day is a challenge. I have to wake up at 4 am daily but usually reach my workplace from 11 am to 12 noon. This is coupled with vehicular traffic challenges.
“Mortgage scheme for me is a waste of time, resources and energy, is not everyone that applies for that gets it”, she said.
A journalist, Barr. Musa Adamu lives in Keffi in Nasarawa State and works in the FCT during weekdays.
He said: “At the outset, I had a vision of what my ideal family should look like and it was clear with my job as a journalist in a private medium, my take-home -pay could not afford that. This is with respect to accommodation, the school for the children, and feeding.
“Accommodation, particularly a decent one in a decent location in Abuja is beyond the reach of an average salary earner, hence, my decision to stay where my pay could get me suitable comfort.
“In total, however, for you to make it in good time from Keffi to Abuja for work, you need to leave by 5 am; ditto with closing.
“Though I drive, the average fare for someone coming from Keffi to work in Abuja is in the range of N 1,000 to N1,500.
“Staying in Keffi is not such a bad idea when the small issue of traffic gridlock is taken out. In terms of ambiance and style of living, minus the cost of living, Keffi is not too different from Abuja”.
Data About Housing in Nigeria.
According to the World Bank’s report in 2018, Nigeria required about 700,000 housing units annually for a period of 20 years to cater for the country’s fast rising population of over 200 million. Data from the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) also corroborated the report in 2020, indicating the country had an estimated deficit of over 17 million housing units as of December 2020.
The International Human Rights Commission recently put the country’s housing deficit at 28 million, but the Minister of Works and Housing, Babatunde Fashola, noted that it would be a difficult task to determine the current housing deficit in the country without a thorough assessment.
A recent report by the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), shows that Nigeria is expected to be the third- most -populous country after China and India by 2050 with its fast rising population expected to increase to over 401 million.
Yet, in 2012, a report by the National Bureau of Statistics showed that the government only spent 2% of its total expenditure on housing sector which contributed to the 50 per cent of the Nigerian population estimated to be living in cities in 2016 and the 80 per cent living in substandard condition.
Experts’ View
Speaking on the matter with Africa Health Report, AHR, recently a city planning and development expert in Abuja, Dr. Chiahemba Nor said that affordable housing for all residents in Abuja was more effective in the 80s and the 90s when the state (federal government of Nigeria) was directly involved in the provision of public housing and building public houses for public/civil servants.
He said: “The houses were built by the government to accommodate low-income earners. Hence across the country, the government was involved in the building of low-cost housing for public/civil servants to accommodate the working class and those just coming into the city and desiring to settle down.
“Underpinning this fundamentally, there were factors that made this possible. The government had enormous resources; the institutions were there to make sure that government policy on public housing was implemented to the letter; there was deliberate planning and development of public housing and the timely completion of low-income houses.
“And the necessary infrastructure; the population in the city of Abuja had not been so huge and thus the government could effectively plan and provide houses for the population.
“But today the situation is diametrically opposite. Abuja doesn’t have enormous resources to play that interventionist role of direct involvement in the provision of public housing in Abuja as it was in the 1980s and 1990s.
“It is a general problem across the country. Housing provision is capital intensive and encompasses the provision of infrastructure – roads, schools, hospitals, parks and gardens, drainages, sewer and water lines, and all the paraphernalia that makes living in a city comfortable and sustainable.
“The reality is just that Abuja doesn’t have enormous resources as it had in the 1980s and 1990s. Back then due to enormous resources from the oil sector, Abuja’s development and the question of public housing and infrastructure were indeed supported by the petrol-Dollars from the oil sector.
“There was just the vivacity of life and urban development across the various districts of the city because there were enormous resources to make things happen in Abuja by the government through the FCDA (Federal Capital Development Authority).
“But with oscillating oil prices over the decades at the international market, the city has not had that kind of money it had then, and this has affected the government’s role in housing provision.
Dr. Nor identified high cost of building materials, access to land and policy drift as major factors hampering affordable housing in Abuja.
He said: “there has been the problem of policy drift in the housing sector. This creates instability and by extension the provision of low-income or affordable housing in the city. There is yet the problem of huge flows of people, migration, into the city of Abuja.
“The regional areas of Abuja and the FCT have surged with population. There are IDPs in many parts of the city. So the population is huge! With a huge population and lean resources, how can the government be effective in the direct provision of low-income or affordable housing? Indeed there are many other challenges.
“Of recent, the government came up with the policy of Public Private Partnership (PPP) in housing provision known as Abuja Mass Housing. While this would have been a fantastic policy for partnering with the private sector in housing development, the implementation of the policy has not been fully effective.
“We have got challenges indeed! Some of the estate developers, for example, are more interested in money-making and land speculation than building sustainable and affordable houses with the necessary ancillary infrastructure – playgrounds and green areas, roads, water, electricity, and schools, among others.
“The houses, even when built, tend to be exorbitant and unaffordable for the public.
“If many of the houses go into millions, how can a common man afford such? But again, you cannot completely blame the estate developers. What’s the cost of building materials in the market now? The economy is not what it used to be 5 years ago, for instance. Things are quite expensive! Even the cost of buying land in the city is quite expensive.’’
The development expert, however, suggested that to ensure some of these houses are made affordable for public servants, Government across the country needs to make access to land easily available; make the mortgage more flexible, and promote more awareness for people to know about mortgage (National Housing Fund, for instance); the need to encourage to the use of local materials; among others.
Corroborating the views of Dr. Nor, the CEO of Zezi-Forte Global Solutions Ltd, Princess Anita Uvo, also blamed the high cost of renting houses in Abuja on the cost of building materials and access to land.
In her words: “if the government really wants houses to be affordable for the low-income, then the government must regulate the cost of building materials.
“Because for someone who is buying a bag of cement for N4,600, something that used to be N1, 200 you can see the difference is really on the high side.”
On the contrary, Uvo who described the agency fee burden on house seekers as a criminal act argued that the burden should not be on the house seeker alone likewise the legal fees which in a long run skyrocket the cost of renting for low-income earners and beginners.
“It’s a criminal act because you can’t tell me because I want to rent a house. The house is already expensive. It’s N3,000,000 and then you are to pay 15%, in some cases 20%. Why am I the one paying for all of these?
“So I think the agency fee being paid by just one party is not right, it is supposed to be paid by both parties.
“The owner of the property has to pay his own part and then the tenants pay their own part too which is supposed to be 5% from both parties then the legal fee. I see no reason why the tenant is the one paying the legal fee.
“I’m a rentor, so it’s not like I don’t like money, but I just think it’s unfair that the tenants bear the burden of all the agency, and the legal fee is unfair because it’s the owner of the property or their facility manager who has the lawyer.
“So why is the tenant paying for somebody else’s lawyer? I don’t think that is right. I think we should go back to the way it was before. The tenant pays their 5% agency to their agent and the landlord pays his own agent or his facility manager their fee because the cost of rent in Abuja is already very high”.
