Nasir el-Rufai, the governor of Kaduna State, claims that Nigeria needs a supportive mortgage policy to address its housing shortage.
El-Rufai revealed this information on Saturday, shortly after launching the Gombe Geographic Information Systems Service Center and breaking ground for 550 Shongo Homes and Gardens in Gombe State as part of the Family Homes Fund.
The governor of Kaduna State asserted that selling homes for between N10 million and N50 million was unsustainable and that there is currently an estimated 18 million housing shortage.
In addition to emphasizing that the incoming administration under President-elect Bola Tinubu would guarantee single-digit interest between 15 and 20 years, he revealed that the mortgage system would allow buyers to pay in 25 years.
“The steps taken by Gombe are the right steps,” he declared, referring to the organization’s collaboration with the private sector and other investors to build homes. But until we have a national mortgage system, the housing deficit problem won’t ever be solved. People cannot purchase homes by paying N10 million to N50 million all at once.That is never done all at once. We must create a system that enables people to purchase homes and pay them off over a 25-year period at low interest rates. Therefore, a national mortgage system is required.
“The Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu administration has already committed to developing a national mortgage system with single digit interest and 15 to 20 years of repayment, and we are looking for it. It is possible to accomplish. When we sold 32,000 Federal Government homes, I tried it in the FCT, but it was only successful there. It wasn’t expanded on a national scale. I believe it is now appropriate to expand it nationwide. The housing deficit, which currently stands at about 18 million homes, can be reduced once you do that because builders know as soon as they build the house it will be sold tomorrow.
El-Rufai continued by expressing confidence that states would be given the chance to function, and he added that states should come up with ways to survive without the Federal Account Allocation Committee.
Read Also: Sylva, Bayelsa APC’s party leader, sole financier
“We hope that the new administration, led by President Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu, will encourage the states even more to take control of their own affairs.
“Defending on Federation Account Allocation is not the way to go for us as states. The only way to do this is to look into potential sources of revenue generation within our states. We must figure out a way to be independent from the FAAC. And we can only accomplish this if we have made the appropriate infrastructure investments, attracted the appropriate investment, and ensured that our land administration and tax administration—which is a sine qua non—are flawless.
“We are fortunate that a former governor, Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu, will be the president and knows what we are concerned about to give states more authority and revenue because that is how Nigeria will progress,” he said. “The Federal Government can assist provide land.
Kabiru Hassan, the director general of GOGIS, said the organization had completed the project’s implementation and the switch from a manual to a digital system.
Some of our notable accomplishments, he continued, include digitizing over 22,000 manual land files out of the 27,000 we currently have in our records and securing digital Certificates of Occupancy.
Additionally, in an effort to address issues with missing files, double allocation, and the creation of infilled plots, we digitized 52 layouts, converted about 12,000 customary titles to statutory titles, and captured over 1,500 customary plots into our database through an electronically driven process.
