The Minister of State for Works and Housing, Mu’azu Jaji Sambo, has said the federal government would provide more adequate and affordable housing for about 2000 families in the Federal Capital Territory (FCT).
A statement issued Monday night in Abuja by the ministry’s deputy director, Press and Public Relations, Mr. Stephen Kilebi, qouted the minister who spoke during his maiden inspection of the affordable housing and management development initiative in Gwagwalada, Abuja on Monday.
The minister said it was a constitutional and fundamental requirement for the government to provide decent and affordable houses for its citizens.
He said: “It is a fundamental priority of President Muhammadu Buhari’s administration to provide decent and affordable houses for the teeming masses of Nigerians especially against the backdrop of rural-urban migration.”
The minister said Nigeria’s population which is about 200 million is projected to be about 400 million by 2050 and they will need affordable houses.
Continuing, he said: “It may interest you to know that out of the 200 million Nigerians we have today, it is estimated that about half of that figure is living in the urban centres, adding that it is the responsibility of any government most especially the President Muhammadu Buhari’s led administration to make sure that affordable houses are provided for them.
“It is part of our mandate and that is why I am here on this inspection to see how I can assist the senior Minister, Babatunde Raji Fashola in fast tracking this laudable development”.
He said his decision to visit the project was deliberate.
“I chose the project deliberately as my first outing as a Minister because as it is christened, Affordable Housing Development and Management Initiative of 2000 housing units to 2000 families right here in the Federal Capital Territory and if we get it right, it will be a template that will be replicated all over the county and our drive is to see how we can get it at the lowest cost possible,” he said.
Also, speaking, the Head of Public Private Partnership of the ministry, Abimbola Asein, said the project was sitting on 113 hectares of land to provide affordable houses for Nigerians especially the low and middle income earners.
Asein said the initiative was a public, private partnership programme to provide affordable houses for Nigerians.
She added: “The first phase of the project which commenced in December 2021 is to put the infrastructure (roads and drainages in place which is about 25% completed and we hope that when the houses are provided, they will be affordable to all Nigerians.”
