Towards Affordable Living Houses

Quote:” Increasingly viewed as a commodity, housing is most importantly a human right. Under international law, to be adequately housed means having secure tenure—not having to worry about being evicted or having your home or lands taken away”

The rising cost of house rents across cities and urban areas across Nigeria is most worrisome to say the least. More worrisome is the fact that while house rents are on a geometric increase, and the cost of living is astronomically high, the economy has remained most unfriendly and salaries very disproportionate to the basic necessities of life. Some State legislatures, like Lagos, have legislated on house rent control to check the Shylock attitude of some landlords. As good and necessary as such Legislative intervention, the feasibility of effectively controlling housing rents without adequate participation of public and organized private sector in remedying the housing deficit in Nigeria, in my considered view, is like building castles in the air, which will inevitably translate to an exercise in futility.

The reasons are not far-fetched: the spiralling prices of building materials today leaves much to be desired bringing house owners to face the challenge of property maintenance. No doubt the cost of building a house is about ten times more than it was five years ago. It is so bad that people wonder if civil servants and other low income earners can ever build a house. The hyper inflationary trend in the country has compounded the situation reinforcing the reality of the economic law that increase in the prices of essential commodity will inevitably result in increase in the prices of other commodities because the dealers will need to increase the price of their products or commodities to remain in business.

Though Nigeria is not as populous as China with a conservative 1.4 billion population, and having the capacity to provide to the housing needs of her people, it is not saying a new thing that the growing population of Nigeria and rural-urban migration has heightened the quest for decent living houses with more money chasing scarce accomodations.The terms of payment is very outrageous as house agents cash on housing deficit to connive with landlords to unwittingly increase rents and the monetary requirements to access a decent living place. One can’t imagine how a two bedroom flat will go for N1.2 million to be paid for two years, exclusive of the pecuniary benefits accruing to the house agents and legal fees and other outrageous charges.

Corruption is another major problem of housing deficit as government allocations to the housing sector were either outrightly embezzled or misappropriated with impunity. Housing need remains endemic in most nations of the world, including Nigeria. As a basic material necessity, of humans, availability  of adequate and affordable housing has become one of the challenges government at all levels, multinational or corporate organisations must grapple with. The United Nations’ Year 2000 Millennium Development Goals which includes  “Shelter for all”, has  failed to address housing deficits   25 years after it was initiated. According to reports, of a global population of about eight billion people, more than 1.8 billion people live in informal settlements or inadequate housing with limited access to essential services such as water and sanitation, electricity and are often under threat of forced eviction.

One of the most severe violations of the right to adequate housing—homelessness—has been on a steep increase in many economically advanced countries. Housing is a right not a commodity. Increasingly viewed as a commodity, housing is most importantly a human right. Under international law, to be adequately housed means having secure tenure—not having to worry about being evicted or having your home or lands taken away. It means living somewhere that is in keeping with your culture, and having access to appropriate services, schools, and employment. Too often violations of the right to housing occur with impunity. In part, this is because, at the domestic level, housing is rarely treated as a human right. The key to ensuring adequate housing is the implementation of this human right through appropriate government policy and programmes, including national housing strategies.

Adequate housing was recognized as part of the right to an adequate standard of living in article 25 of the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights and in article 11.1 of the 1966 International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights. Other international human rights treaties have si