The Nigeria Mortgage Refinance Company has restated its commitment to providing interim housing data to aid decision-making, aimed at addressing the country’s housing deficit.
The Chief Executive Officer of NMRC, Kehinde Ogundimu, stated this during the inauguration of a new joint steering committee on housing data in Abuja recently.
To ensure the continuity of data provision, Ogundimu suggested that NMRC could offer interim solutions while the National Data Centre was being established.
“If there are any interim measures that are needed, maybe a temporary data portal or something, NMRC can provide that while we are providing one that will be substantive and robust for the entire nation,” Ogundimu stated.
He highlighted the critical need for comprehensive and reliable housing data, saying, “We need to explore, gather all the details from where we can gather them, put them in the database, and then begin to refine them by the analysis that we make of such data.”
Ogundimu expressed optimism about the new system and portal introduced by the Ministry of Housing and Urban Development, which aim to streamline data collection and analysis.
“I am so happy that the ministers are providing all the information they have been able to glean from this new system, the portal that they have. It will help in decision-making, both in policy decisions and in financial decisions, project planning, and so many other things,” he added.
The initiative to consolidate housing data is seen as crucial for informed decision-making across various Ogundimu assured the Minister of Housing and Urban Development of NMRC’s commitment to delivering credible and reliable data.“The task before us is enormous, and Honorable Minister, we assure you that we will do all we can to deliver to the best of our ability and to put forth something that will be credible, reliable and that people can use to make informed decisions,” he emphasised.
According to Ogundimu, the National Population Commission already holds significant data that could contribute to this effort.
“I am also happy to report that in my interactions with the population commission, they have most of this data. The number of houses in Nigeria is about 66 million. The habitable ones are maybe something like 40 million. The data is here. So I think you now bringing all of us together will help us just to bring this to the fore quickly and get data that is reliable,” Ogundimu explained.
He emphasised the committee’s determination to meet the set timelines, noting the possibility of running tasks concurrently to accelerate the process.
“We will look at the timeline. As rightly noted, sir, even though we said 12 months, some of these things can overlap. We can run them concurrently. So we will shorten the timeline for the deliverable,” he said.
The Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of Housing and Urban Development, Marcus Ogunbiyi, also commented, “The issue of housing development is a significant challenge facing our country. It has hindered the progress of housing development plans due to a lack of effective strategies and data.”
He noted that the committee’s scope included establishing a national housing development centre, creating data-gathering channels, and developing distribution channels for data to financial markets.Ogunbiyi remarked, “The relevance of this committee cannot be overstated. It is an important initiative that should have been established earlier.”
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