FG opens bid for Nigerians to own houses that take 19 years’ savings to buy

The Federal Government is set to commence the sale of houses under the National Mass Housing Programme.

The Minister of Works and Housing, Babatunde Fashola, on Friday, unveiled an online portal for the housing scheme in Abuja.

The houses are available for sale from N7.2 million upward.

In his address, the minister noted that this is the first time Nigeria would provide a platform that is accessible to all citizens.

He said: “This provides an opportunity for all Nigerians to apply and ensure a fair process of allocation.”

While the Nigerian government’s effort is a significant boost to the country’s housing challenges, however, many citizens will have to wait for another 19 years to participate in the process.

For a Nigerian on a minimum wage of N30,000, it requires 19 years of full savings to have a chance to buy one of the cheapest houses available for sale in the scheme

Fashola added: “There are over 5,000 units of houses are at different stages of completion under the programme. We have opened the portal to give Nigerians a fair chance of becoming landlords.

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“The projects are spread across the states of the federation and the Federal Capital Territory. The highest selling price is N16.19 million.”

On the adoption of the online process, the minister stated: “It is just to make the system more accountable and people seeing credibility if they win and if they are not successful they will equally know that the system has at least given them a fair chance.

“We converge here just to introduce a portal on which the National Housing Programme pilot will be offered for sale to the public. What that means is that we will not be selling printed forms, the forms are online and this allows for more openness, limits human intervention and any disposition to any underhand practice.”

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