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FASHOLA OUTLINES ROADMAP TO SUSTAINABLE HOUSING IN NIGERIA, SAYS PLANNING IS KEY
Minister of Power, Works and Housing, Mr. Babatunde Fashola SAN, Tuesday, in Abuja outlined the roadmap of his Ministry to achieving a sustainable Housing delivery in the country saying the first key to the roadmap in housing was planning.
Fashola, who spoke at the 35th Annual General Meeting (AGM) of Shelter Afrique in Abuja, said in order to meet the real demand of the majority of Nigerians in housing, it was not only necessary but expedient to embark on proper planning adding that it is the key to project completion, cost control and reduction in variation requests as well as financial calculations.
Noting that what the country now has as a National Housing Policy was only a Policy Statement and not a plan, the Minister declared, “We must never tire to explain the necessity and importance of proper planning. It is the key to successful execution, it is the key to project completion, it is the key to cost control and reduction in variation requests and financial calculations”.
“I acknowledge that there is, for example, a National Housing Policy of 2012. Some have chosen to call it a plan. To the extent that it is a broad statement of intent about providing housing, it is a policy statement”, the Minister said adding that his Ministry was currently developing the needed plan to make the housing policy a reality.
Elaborating further on the plans of his Ministry, Fashola, who explained that the plan requires “a clear understanding of who we want to provide housing for”, added, “I recognize that there are people who want land to build for themselves, there are also people who want town houses and duplexes, whether detached or semi-detached”, pointing out that this category of people were not in the majority.
According to him, “The people who we must focus on are those in the majority and those who are most vulnerable; the people who are in the bracket of those who graduated from University about five years ago and more. People who are in the income bracket of grade level 9 to 15 in the public service and their counterparts, taxi drivers, market men and women, farmers, artisans who earn the same range of income”.
Fashola said in order to capture the target population, the Ministry needed to conduct a survey to determine what they expect and what they could pay as well as evolve agreeable housing types, between two to four designs that have a broad, national cultural acceptance adding that there was need also to standardize the designs “so that we can then design moulds to accelerate the number that can be built”.
Also the plan requires the standardization of the size of doors, windows, toilet and bath fittings, lighting fittings and other accessories so that the small and medium enterprises could “respond to supply all the building materials, create diversification and jobs; and ensure that projects are completed with a steady supply of materials”.
Other requirements in his Ministry’s plans, the Minister said, include ensuring that the designs reflect behavioral patterns of Nigerians, such as adequate storage, and other lifestyle needs, that there is ready water supply, power supply, waste and sewage management and paying attention to the transport needs and land density prescriptions of the communities that are built.
The plans also include ensuring that the process of issuing legal title is in place and
focus on post-construction maintenance to ensure that the houses remain in good condition after they have been sold to the owners.
Expressing pleasure that a lot of work has been done by staff of the Ministry towards concluding the plans, Fashola, who also acknowledged the voluntary contribution of some private sector to the initiatives, announced that 12 states have responded to the request for land adding that while more responses are awaited, the Ministry was taking the next step to survey the plots of land and develop layouts, preparatory to commencing development.
“In essence, the road to Nigeria’s housing challenge lies in meticulous planning and original thinking”, he said adding, “I am of the view that the solution to housing Africa’s urban low income population must proceed along the same basis by each African country”.
Recalling the recent Habitat III Summit hosted in Abuja in February 2016, Fashola pointed out that a major declaration about the need for Africans to take responsibility and be original in developing their own solutions was made in the Abuja declaration adding, “It is a document that I commend all of us”.
The Minister, who also recalled his meeting with the Managing Director of Shelter Afrique earlier in the year to review preparations for the ongoing Annual General Meeting, said one of the things he requested of him was that the Managing Director should furnish him with a report of the impact of Shelter Afrique’s initiative for his assessment adding that his request was based on his belief that the success of any project and the possibility of improving upon it depends on the ability to measure it.
According to the Minister, highlights of the report showed that between 2005 and 2010, Shelter Afrique in Nigeria had financed 23 initiatives with a total of $52,175,000(Approximately N10.435 BILLION) adding that of these initiatives, 15 represented lending for construction of housing projects, out of which the largest was for $7 million for 376 houses of different types, and 251 serviced plots, followed by 287 mixed housing units for a cooperative society, 55 housing units and 100 Service plots and the least was for 16 maisonettes.
“This is the intervention on the supply side of housing to provide houses.
The remaining eight interventions were for mortgage financing to building societies, credit line for individual mortgages and related financing, on the demand side of housing, to provide finance”, he said.
According to him, the other parts of the report also showed a financing of $60,400,000 (Approximately N12.08 BILLION) over the last three years in 10 interventions adding that out of these 10, seven were for housing construction, namely 287 units, 90 units, 15 floor commercial complex, 59 housing units, 300 housing units, 130 apartments and 44 housing units on the supply side.
“The remaining three interventions were for equity investment in the Nigerian Mortgage Refinance Company (NMRC) ($3M); and credit lines for on-lending for mortgage totaling $13 Million (N2.6 BILLION)”, he said adding, “Given the topic of this symposium, which is ‘Housing Africa’s Urban Low Income Population’, “I am mindful that Shelter Afrique is not the only interventionist in the market, but I think that if we use this as a case study and benchmark ourselves, we can improve our efforts by measuring our progress and trying new things”.
The Minister noted that over the years, Nigeria has embarked on a series of housing initiatives but not one of them has been pursued with consistency or any measurable sustainability adding, “In the Ministry of Power, Works and Housing, we are convinced that these unsustainable efforts must change, and give way to a sustainable and well thought out initiative”.
“We are convinced that this change must be led by Government and subsequently driven by the private sector”, he said citing as example of a sustained housing initiative,
the public housing initiative of the United Kingdom which, he said, was started by government in 1918 and as of 2014, 64.8 per cent of UK’s 53 million people are home owners.
Also citing the Singaporean initiative which was started by government in 1960, the Minister, who said it has provided housing for 80 per cent of its three million people, declared, “What is common to both models, is that there was a uniformity of design, a common target to house working class people, and not the elite, standardization of fittings like doors, windows, space, electrical and mechanical, and also a common concept of neighborhood”.
“The Shelter Afrique report which I disclosed to you does not share these characteristics. It shows funding for diverse initiatives such as service plots, commercial complex, apartments, and mixed housing”, he said adding that after the announcement that the present Government would be building houses, scores of proposals have been received from people with majority of them saying they want to build 10,000 units of housing.
Saying although he would love to see houses built in such large numbers, the Minister, however, noted that the Ministry’s interrogation of the proposals showed that none of the people who wanted to build 10,000 houses could show any evidence that they have previously built 500 houses to show their capacity.
“A sizable number of them are Road construction companies, and I am aware that the logistics for road construction are quite different from that for housing construction.
Some of them want to build duplexes and I think we all agree that this is not where the demand of Africa’s urban low income lies”, he said adding that one of them who had signed a contract to deliver a 1,000 housing unit estate since around 2013 had run into difficulty after building 84 units.
Pointing out that many of the Public Private Partnership housing initiatives entered into have either stalled as a result of funding, lack of capacity, land disputes or court cases, Fashola, who noted that it was not the road to sustainability, declared, “Ladies and Gentlemen, a lot of money has passed through the African continent from oil, Agro- produce, mining, trade and other sources, but it is yet to deliver on the promise of prosperity that lies on the horizon”.
“I know that there is a high expectancy out there. But everything tells me that as desirous as speed is, for us to respond to people’s expectations, we must be careful not to build roads that go nowhere; instead, we must be meticulous, focused and dedicated to build a road to prosperity”, he said.
NNPCL and Corruption’s Final Throes
By Pius Olasanmi
In the twilight of the Obasanjo administration, when Nigerians were still capable of being outraged, when Turn Around Maintenance (TAM) of refineries was a buzzword that still held some mysticism to bamboozle citizens, during a conversation, a certain man said something profound. The man said, “As a businessman, if I were the owner of these refineries, knowing that they are three decades old, I would take the last money I have, hire bulldozers, raze them to the ground, and obtain loans to build new ones.”
When we pressed him further on why he would engage in such waste, he explained that repairing the refineries is the real waste. He explained that even if the TAM were honestly carried out, a thirty-year-old refinery would never compete favourably with a new one that would integrate contemporary technology. Operating at its best, such a refinery would never be comparatively more efficient. It is therefore pointless to have spent another one naira on the refineries at that point.
A few months later, I had a conversation with a then-lawmaker on an entirely different matter. I mentioned that the National Assembly has failed by not crafting legislation that would criminalise and punish public office holders who foist wrong decisions on the country. The logic: a public office holder need not steal to be punished, wrong decisions should attract penalties for an office holder who opts for the worst of all options when there are less injurious ones.
These established premises speak to the ongoing nauseating efforts at revisionism by those who wrecked the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPCL) and its previous iteration, the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC). Notably, this campaign to rewrite history is traceable to Engineer Mele Kolo Kyari, the disgraced immediate past Chief Executive Officer of NNPCL and his hirelings. They have suffocated the news and the public opinion space with even more lies than they spun while in office.
The Saint Kyari campaign is anchored on convincing Nigerians that the Port Harcourt, Warri and Kaduna Refineries were fully functional when he was booted out of office. So brazen is the campaign that one of its talking heads challenged the group chief executive officer (GCEO), Engr. Bayo Ojulari, to “inform Nigerians categorically what happened to the functioning refineries he inherited from his predecessor, Engr. Mele Kyari.” The effrontery.
We have not forgotten so soon the charade that followed the baffling claim that Nigeria has spent $2.8 billion on the repair of the refineries, while they are not churning out even a single litre of refined product among them. Saint Kyari and his goons played all manner of tricks, all of which embarrassed President Bola Tinubu, who had counted on ticking off the return to productivity of the refineries as part of his achievements, only to realise that he was deceived into celebrating phantoms. Tragic.
Lest we forget, 200 trucks were arranged as props in a well-directed video clip to celebrate the re-streaming of the Port Harcourt Refinery. The disappointment. Nigerians were to learn from several reports that the Port Harcourt refinery was not producing and was instead using old, stored petroleum products to load trucks. Worse still, the Kyari crew was passing off sanction-tainted Russian-sourced crude oil refined in Malta as locally refined products. More insult was piled on the assault on our collective sensibility with the lies that the Port Harcourt Refinery exported semi-finished products. Brazen.
Meanwhile, Kyari and his hirelings called those who pointed out or protested these glaring scams all manner of names. They hid behind industry technicalities and jargon to create the impression that those of us who knew Nigerians were being robbed did not understand what we were saying. The point remains that a $2.8 billion investment can potentially build a refinery with a capacity of around 100,000 barrels per day (bpd). Of course, the actual capacity of such a refinery will depend on various factors, including the complexity of the refinery, the technology used, and the location. That is the amount that Kyari’s regime at the NNPCL took and did not give Nigerians refined products.
Fast forward to Kyari’s sack and the appointment of Engineer Bayo Ojulari, who has demonstrated that things can indeed be done differently. Kyari’s exit was expectedly followed by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) going after him and his associates. The extent of the theft is better understood against the backdrop of N80 billion being found in the bank account of one of his associates. They went on the run.
Perhaps because the EFCC was biding its time on securing international warrants for the arrests of these characters on the lam, they have become emboldened. They have decided to fight back and rewrite the story of their participation in the greatest fraud against Nigerians. Engineer Ojulari’s renewed mindset, which is entrenching a semblance of the transparency Nigerians demand, became their natural target. The demons that once roamed around the corporation came out with malevolence. They started spinning stories of corruption to tarnish the incumbent who refused to hide their crimes. The objective: bring Ojulari down. But alas, he is winning the war as it stands.
His innocence is proven, and it is glaring that those who want him out are mere charlatans who can no longer ply their corrupt wares because of the impact of the new reforms. Corruption in the NNPCL is in its final throes. The fake news being unleashed against the incumbent leadership is akin to corruption’s last kicks as reforms in the sector strangulate it and its practitioners. The reforms must take place in the NNPCL, whether the industry demons like it or not.
As a parting shot, Kyari and his associates would do well to prepare their defence. In addition to accounting for the $2.8 billion they laundered in the name of repairing the moribund refineries, they must also answer for the poor decision to fix that which is irretrievably broken. Awarding contracts for Turn Around Maintenance of 59-year-old refineries that a right-thinking person had suggested should be demolished almost twenty years ago, when they were only 30 years old, is criminal. Trying to deceive Nigerians that the fake repairs worked is treason.
Olasanmi is a public affairs analyst writing from Lagos.
GRANDIS 5STAR LUXURY APARTMENT & SUITES SET TO REDEFINE LIVING IN VICTORIA ISLAND
Set to Rise elegantly against the Lagos skyline, is the Grandis 5Star Luxury Apartment & Suites. According to Adejuwon Ademola, The General Manager of the Development company, it is more than just a residential building
“it’s a lifestyle statement. Standing 17 floors high in the heart of Victoria Island, this revolutionary masterpiece of modern architecture will offer a panoramic 360° view of Eko Atlantic, Victoria Island, and Ikoyi, transforming every apartment into an exclusive penthouse experience for the world’s most discerning elite.”
Developed by Dumarco Construction Limited, a globally acclaimed company with decades of delivering complex, high-value projects in the highly regulated petroleum, oil, and gas industries, Grandis 5Star brings unmatched international safety standards, uncompromising quality, and timeless elegance into Nigeria’s luxury property market.
> “When you live in Grandis, you’re not just buying a home—you’re investing in peace of mind, world-class safety, and an effortless luxury experience that will remain pristine for decades,” says Adejuwon A. Ademola, General Manager of Dumarco Construction Limited.
The Gold Standard in Safety and Quality
Dumarco’s roots in the oil and gas sector mean the company operates to some of the strictest safety protocols in the world. Every stage—from conceptualization, design, construction, to long-term maintenance—follows internationally accepted procedures and quality assurance measures. Cutting corners is simply not in Dumarco’s vocabulary.
> “In the oil and gas industry, there’s no room for compromise. We’ve brought that same discipline and zero-tolerance for mediocrity into property development,” says Ademola. “That’s why Grandis will be one of the safest and most enduring residential developments in Nigeria.”
To ensure transparency and prevent (project complacency), Dumarco deliberately separates the developer, contractor, and consultant roles, engaging only the most competent professionals in each respective field. Dumarco’s project team includes globally recognized contractors such as Julius Berger, Cappa & D’Alberto, and Elalan, Migliore Construczione & Tecniche (MC&T) and their partners VENCO IMTIAZ CONTRACTING COMPANY (VICC) based in Dubai, UAE, Business Contracting Limited, alongside leading consultants like Morgan Omanitan & Abe, LAMBERT, and James Cubitt.
Grandis – Investments, appreciation, returns and profitability
Our selection process for the location of the project alone was pains-taking and completely thorough scientific process. Top professional companies were employed to conduct a scientific data acquisition and analytical survey of the entire Victoria Island, Ikoyi, Lekki and Eko Atlantic before a project site is selected. Analyzing and acquiring areas developmental charts and trends, studying and gathering historical and present sale prices, rental charge and occupancy rates over a 50 year period from every individual street before the selection of the location of any of our developments especially true for the Grandis Project
He adds,
“Our clients and residents can be rest assured that the location of Grandis has been scientifically proven through all existing data to provide our clients with a 100% occupancy rate, highest developmental location, highest rental income and investment returns. ”
The Grandis Experience
Located minutes away from international corporate headquarters, embassies, and landmarks such as Eko Hotel, Radisson Blu, and the Radisson Red, Grandis offers unmatched convenience for professionals, diplomats, and high-net-worth individuals. Every residence is designed for both indulgence and efficiency, with high-grade finishes, smart-home systems, and private amenities that ensure seamless living.
From sunrise over the Atlantic to the glittering Lagos night skyline, residents will enjoy uninterrupted luxury, supported by discreet and highly trained staff, advanced security systems, and a design that prioritizes comfort and privacy.
> “We designed Grandis for people who want everything—security, elegance, convenience, and the assurance that their home will look as spectacular in 20 years as it does on day one,” Ademola notes.
A Legacy That Lasts
With its combination of visionary architecture, peerless safety, and meticulous maintenance planning, Grandis is built to remain iconic for generations. Thanks to Dumarco’s meticulous approach, the building’s service charges are expected to remain low while its value and appeal continue to appreciate over time.
In a market often marred by shortcuts and substandard practices, Mr Ademola says
Grandis stands as a beacon of what luxury living should be—safe, spectacular, and built to last.
“Grandis 5Star Luxury Apartment & Suites — Where safety meets sophistication, and every detail is designed for a life well-lived.”
He added
Website -www.dumarcoltd.com
Project website – www.26idowutaylor.com
Email [email protected]
Tel / WhatsApp +234 9077777883
GM – Adejuwon A. Ademola
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