During the Shelter Afrique 35th AGM and Symposium in Abuja, President Muhammadu Buhari stated that Nigeria required one million housing units annually to reduce its current housing deficit of about 17 million to avert a housing crisis by the year 2020.
The federal government has earmarked N40 billion in the 2016 capital budget to implement a comprehensive housing programme in the country. The president said that the current realties of housing shortfall, challenges housing developers in Nigeria and Africa as a whole to re-assess their strategies and evolve fresh methodologies to meet the exigencies of these times.
While urging the participants to evolve strategies that would assist national governments across the continent to develop robust systems to deliver affordable housing to the low income on a sustainable basis, he called on Shelter Afrique and other development partners to invest more in the Nigeria housing sector to deepen the vibrancy of the country’s housing market. The MD/CEO of Shelter Afrique, James Mugerwa said that the organisation has invested US$50 million in the sector and has created 30 million construction workers across the continent.
