Editorial
Import Of World Habitat Day
For over 20 years now, the Nigerian State
has continued to pay lip service to the
vexed issue of housing deficit. This is in spite of the fact that shelter is one of the most basic necessities of man. It is also one of the key responsibilities of a responsible State.
It is in appreciation of this fact that the United Nations, in resolution 40/202 of December 17, 1985 designated the first Monday of October every year as World Habitat Day.
Considering the backwardness of the African Continent in this area, the first UN’s World Habitat Day was celebrated in Nairobi in 1986 with the theme ‘Shelter is My Right’. Since then, the observance has adopted different themes highlighting global expectations from individual member nations.
In 1987, the theme was “Shelter for The Homeless, in 1995, ‘Our Neighbourhood’, 1997 ‘Future Cities’, 1998 “Safer Cities”, 2000, ‘Women in Urban Governance’, 2001, “Cities Without Slums”, and 2003, “Water and Sanitation for Cities’.
Last year’s theme, “Public Spaces For All’ was intended to infuse in all, governments and the citizenry the principle of self inclusion and for the people of the world to raise necessary questions for their rights to shelter.
This year’s World Habitat Day was observed last Monday, with the theme, ‘Housing At The Centre’ and aims to raise more awareness about the need for affordable housing for all in urban areas, towns and cities.
As in previous years, this year’s reflected on the state of human settlements and people’s right to sufficient shelter. It also aims to remind people that they are responsible for the habitat of the future next generations.
Strangely, Nigeria seems indifferent to these global projections as slums continue to multiply in major cities and urban centres alike on account of increasing rent that are now beyond the reach of the common man. The often promised low income housing project seems dead as the citizenry are left to the whims of Shylock landlords.
Some of those whose work demands require shelter in the cities have now resorted to living in abandoned public buildings or make-shift shanties in slums that fall below the level of human habitat. What is worse, governments seem not to be bothered by the high rate of rent charged by private home owners.
Research has also shown that public office holders depended upon to address the housing deficit, instead collude with land developers and estate agents to build luxury houses, which only the rich can afford. And because their interest is largely compromised, it becomes difficult, if not impossible to address high rents or project low cost houses for the average Nigerian.
This year’s World Habitat Day ‘coincided with Teachers’ Day, and was willingly consumed by the latter. It should not be so.
Shelter is also one of the most important of human needs any government should seek to address. A people without affordable homes cannot be properly governed. It also makes policing difficult, since most criminals would be itinerant with no fixed addresses.
The Tide believes that the time has come for governments in Nigeria to start investing properly in housing to gradually eliminate the yawning housing deficit. Within the last 31 years, since the campaign began, countries like the United Arab Emirates (UEA), China and India, among many others have moved from providing shelter to building new cities, while Nigeria still lags behind.
This year’s theme: “Housing At The Centre” is most apt because now is the time for housing to take a central place in our annual budgeting, because no amount of vote put into the building of shelters for the people can be considered a waste.
In spite of the challenges posed by the economic melt-down, we think that the federal and state governments need to appropriate more for housing as a means of building the selfworth of the people and enhancing community policing.
A habitat that leaves many with no permanent addresses or in slums with no easy identification is inimical to the safety needs of the State. Investment in housing is therefore, an investment for the security and well-being of the State and the people.
That is what Habitat Day should be all about.
There are moments in the life of a legislature when plain speaking becomes a public service. Senator Adams Oshiomhole provided such a moment on the floor of the Senate when he accused the Minister of Works, Senator David Umahi, of manifestly neglecting critical federal arteries in Edo and Delta States, and implored his colleagues to prevail on the Minister to adopt a more equitable and genuinely national approach to road infrastructure delivery. It was blunt, it was uncomfortable, and it was necessary.
The specifics of his complaint deserve restating. Drawing attention to the recent approval of some 20 new road projects despite the parlous state of existing ones, the former Edo State governor lamented that Nigerians cannot travel from Benin to Warri, Benin to Asaba, Benin to Auchi, or Auchi to Okene without encountering severe distress. He alleged a deliberate omission of these corridors from the national budget in the last three years, save for palliative interventions directed by President Bola Tinubu through tax credit arrangements. His question — “What have we done wrong?” — resonates far beyond the chambers of the National Assembly.
We lend our full and unequivocal support to that call. The Auchi-Benin Road, for instance, has been in a deplorable and near-impassable condition for several years, turning what should be a two-hour journey into an all-day ordeal of broken axles, extortionate fares, and despondent commuters. The media have, on multiple occasions, chronicled the suffering of motorists, traders, and students who ply that route. To describe it as a federal road today is to stretch the meaning of the term beyond recognition.
This pattern of sidelining is not confined to Edo or Delta. Even here in Rivers State, the disposition of the Federal Ministry of Works has left much to be desired, particularly along the Eleme axis of the East-West Road. That road, which ought to be a flagship of federal presence in the Niger Delta, has remained in a wretched state for long. Those who use it daily — workers at the Eleme Petrochemical Complex, the two refineries, Onne Port, and the countless ancillary industries — can attest to its deterioration. Work has proceeded in fits and starts without the sustained urgency such a strategic road demands.
The Eleme stretch is not a mere intra-state byway. It is the gateway to the nation’s economic jugular. According to the Federal Ministry of Works and Housing’s 2023 Highway Condition Survey, only about 35 per cent of the country’s 36,000 kilometres of federal roads are rated as being in good or fair condition, with the remainder classified as poor or very poor. The East-West Road, conceived in the 1970s to bind the entire Niger Delta, remains unfinished in critical sections more than four decades after. If it had been treated as a priority, the perennial gridlock, carnage, and economic loss on the Eleme-Refinery junction would have long been consigned to history.
The irony is as painful as it is glaring. The Niger Delta remains the goose that lays the golden eggs. Data from the Nigeria Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative [NEITI 2023 Oil and Gas Audit] show that the region still accounts for over 78 per cent of Nigeria’s federally collected export earnings and about 65 per cent of total government revenue. The National Bureau of Statistics [NBS Foreign Trade Report Q4 2024] similarly confirms that crude oil continues to dominate export receipts. By every metric of equity and economic logic, a region that sustains the national purse deserves first-rate consideration in the allocation of infrastructure, not afterthoughts and tokenism.
Road infrastructure is not largesse to be dispensed by favour; it is the skeleton upon which commerce, cohesion, and citizenship hang. When contracts are concentrated in one geopolitical zone while other zones are left to contend with craters, it erodes trust in the federation itself. The World Bank’s Nigeria Development Update [June 2023] estimated that poor transport connectivity inflates the cost of moving goods by up to 40 per cent and costs the Nigerian economy an estimated $1.5 billion annually in lost man-hours and vehicle maintenance. If we profess to be one country, then equity must be the compass that guides key institutions before any project is executed. Development must spread round, not pool in one place as though other regions do not matter.
There is also a grave security dimension that can no longer be ignored. The deplorable condition of federal roads has become a veritable enabler of criminality. The NBS Crime Experience and Security Perception Survey reported over 2.5 million incidents of kidnapping-related occurrences nationally, with transport workers identifying bad road spots as prime ambush points. When vehicles are forced to crawl at 10 kilometres per hour through failed sections at Auchi, Sapele Road, or Eleme, they become sitting ducks for armed gangs. Fixing bad roads, therefore, is not merely about convenience; it is about safeguarding lives.
By his intervention, Senator Oshiomhole has hit the nail on the head and reminded Minister Umahi of a fundamental constitutional truth: public office is held in trust. The Ministry of Works is not a personal estate where contracts are awarded according to whim or political convenience. It is a national institution funded by the collective resources of Nigerians, including the oil and gas rents from the very communities whose roads are now neglected. The Minister must demonstrate balance, transparency, and a pan-Nigerian outlook in the distribution of projects that impact the daily existence of citizens. Selective neglect breeds suspicion, and suspicion is corrosive at a time when the nation is preaching unity, oneness, equity, and justice.
Consequently, the National Assembly must go beyond rhetoric and assert its oversight powers with vigour. Sections 88 and 89 of the 1999 Constitution [as amended] empower the legislature to investigate and expose any maladministration in the execution of federal projects. If an office holder is not acting rightly, it is the duty of the Senate and the House of Representatives to call him to order. Oversight must not be reduced to budget approval ceremonies; it must translate to field verification, public hearings, and insistence that the Federal Character principle, as enshrined in Section 14(3) of the Constitution, reflects in road awards.
Let the Auchi-Okene, Benin-Warri, Benin-Asaba, and Eleme East-West gangways be restored to motorable dignity. Let priority be given to completing existing, economically vital roads before embarking on new ones. If those who, through their resources, sustain the federation are sidelined in the distribution of tangible dividends, it tells poorly of our nationhood. Bad roads must be fixed, and they must be fixed now, with fairness as the guiding standard.
