To improve Nigeria’s housing stock, the Director of Community Planning and Design Initiative (CPDI) Africa, Nmadili Okwumabua, has urged the government to increase budgetary allocation to the housing and urban development sectors.
Okwumabua, who made the call in Lagos during a live television programme, stressed the need to prioritise access to land through comprehensive land reforms, describing it as a critical step toward housing development.
She also noted that the country requires increased funding for urban planning and housing development to bridge the huge affordable housing deficit affecting many Nigerians.
Okwumabua pointed out that in the 2026 budget, the Federal Government allocated only N105 billion to the housing sector, emphasising that a lack of intentionality remains a major challenge in efforts to boost housing supply.
According to her, government housing policies must be inclusive and targeted at low-income earners, considering the realities of the country’s estimated population of about 230 million people. “You might think about what the average Nigerian is actually earning. What is the housing policy for someone earning N100,000? What kind of rent or mortgage can such a person afford? We must be mindful of these realities as we plan to go forward,” she said.
She added that addressing the housing challenge requires stronger public-private partnerships. “For me, it is important to harness some of the systems we applied in traditional times. For instance, land was owned by the people and not monetised. In an economy where many people struggle to earn a living, how do they acquire land? That is the first issue.
“The second is building materials. We must standardise and promote local materials to reduce costs. In the past, we used materials that were readily available in our environment.
Then there is labour, in our culture, communities came together to build houses through collective effort and sweat equity, which was not monetised. How can we adapt these ideas to modern times? It is possible,” she said.
Okwumabua also advocated a reorientation of citizens through education and called on the government to provide tax incentives for private developers investing in affordable housing.
She described the Federal Government’s Renewed Hope Housing Programme, which aims to develop housing cities across the country, as a step in the right direction. However, she stressed the need for effective implementation at the state and local government levels, with the government focusing on creating an enabling environment.
On mortgage financing, she observed that mortgages are more effective in economies with stable income structures. “I can only give you a mortgage if I am confident you have a stable income to repay it. In a system where jobs are scarce, how do lenders trust borrowers to repay loans over 20 or 30 years? Yet Nigerians are already paying rent yearly, which shows they have repayment capacity,” she added.
She called for broader stakeholder engagement through town hall meetings involving academics, housing consultants, engineers, architects, urban planners, and financial experts to develop sustainable solutions for the sector.
“There was nothing like homelessness in our traditional society because communities found ways to solve such challenges. Every Nigerian deserves a home, and this issue must be addressed,” Okwumabua added.
In this article