THE WHISTLER

FG Pegs One Bedroom Apartment At N7.3m, Equivalent Of 20 Years Salary Of Nigerians On Minimum Wage

By Ukpe Philip

The Federal Government has launched a portal for its 5,000 housing units which are under different phases of completion.

The Minister of Works and Housing Babatunde Fashiola, said Nigerians can now apply for houses built under the current Federal Government’s National Housing Programme (NHP) in 34 states of the country.

This was following the formal launch of the portal, which took place at the Conference Room of the Ministry in Mabushi, Abuja on Friday.

Fashola said, “We converge here just to introduce a portal on which the National Housing Programme pilot will be offered for sale to the public. What that means is that we will not be selling printed forms, the forms are online and this allows for more openness, limits human intervention and any disposition to any underhand practice”.

Nigeria has a housing deficit of over 21 million units and over N21trn will be required to finance the deficit.

But the debate by experts is that the country needs housing units that average Nigerians can afford.

The National Minimum Wage signed by President Muhammadu Buhari in 2019 was N30,0000 per month.

The building project which was undertaken by the Ministry of Works is under the National Housing Programme programme and is inline with the United Nation Sustainable Development Goals in Nigeria (SGD), the government had claimed.

The seventeen SDGs have an urban component, including targets such as affordable housing.