Public housing delivery in Nigeria: problems and challenges

Abstract

Paper presented at the XXXIII IAHS World Congress on Housing, 27-30 September 2005,"Transforming Housing Environments through Design", University of Pretoria.

In Nigeria political, economic, social and environmental factors and the huge foreign exchange accumulated from the rise in oil price in the 1970s have forced previous civilian and military government to intervene in the urban housing crisis. The initial intervention took the form of rent control. The failure and abandonment of the rent control policy led to the policy of public housing production in the urban centres. The debate on public housing programme in Nigeria has been abandoned largely on the guise of the exercise being a luxury, the economic pressure brought about by the structural adjustment programme of economic recovery of the 1990s and the inefficacy of the previous public housing programme This paper attempts to examine the problem and challenges of public housing delivery in Nigeria. It highlights the nature and dimension of Nigeria’s housing problems. The various government responses at solving the housing problems are identified. The achievements of government past housing governments are examined. Finally factors inhibiting public housing delivery and the challenges of housing in the future are presented.