Tinubu To Flag Off 3,112 Housing Units Tomorrow

In a significant stride towards addressing the housing deficit in Nigeria, President Bola Ahmed Tinubu is poised to initiate the construction of 3,112 housing units in the Karsana area of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) on Thursday.

This marks the commencement of a nationwide project aimed at delivering 100,000 housing units through a Public-Private Partnership (PPP) initiated in December 2023.

The partnership, forged between the Federal Ministry of Housing & Urban Development (FMHUD) and a consortium of companies—Continental Civil and General Construction Limited, along with Ceezali Limited—embarks on the ambitious first phase to construct 20,000 housing units across the FCT, with Karsana hosting 3,112 of these units.

This groundbreaking event, led by President Tinubu, heralds the official start of the “Renewed Hope Cities and Estates” programme, conceived by the FMHUD, to significantly boost the national housing stock and mitigate the pervasive housing shortfall.

The programme envisions the establishment of Cities and Estates across all six geo-political zones of the country and the FCT, promising a minimum of 1,000 housing units per City site and at least 500 housing units per Estate site in the 30 states.

Minister of Housing and Urban Development, Ahmed Dangiwa, highlighted that the project is designed to cater to various income brackets, offering a range of residential options.

These include bedroom blocks of flats for low to medium income earners and more luxurious two to five-bedroom terraces and duplexes aimed at higher income earners, thereby promoting integrated living communities.

The Karsana project, significantly financed by the developers who also procured the land, illustrates a novel approach to housing development in Nigeria.

Furthermore, the FMHUD assures that it will ease access to these houses for potential homeowners through the National Housing Fund (NHF) Scheme, managed by the Federal Mortgage Bank of Nigeria (FMBN), facilitating affordable housing finance options for subscribers.

The statement reads, “The project is the first in a series that the Ministry will be embarking on in the coming weeks. Others are the 2,500 Renewed Hope City housing units at the Ibeju-Lekki Coastal City, Lagos, 500-housing unit Renewed Hope Estate in Kano and 250 housing units in 12 states, two in each geopolitical zone, as Renewed Hope Estates in Ogun, Oyo, Akwa Ibom, Delta, Abia, Ebonyi, Nasarawa, Benue, Yobe, Gombe, Katsina and Sokoto.

“At the core of the Renewed Hope Cities and Estates programme is the cross-subsidy component where 80 per cent of the housing units developed will be sold at commercial rate while 20 per cent will be sold at concessionary rates to low- and medium-income Nigerians who are members of the Nigeria Labour Congress and the Trade Union Congress. The idea is to deploy profits made from the commercial units as a subsidy for the units reserved for low- and medium-income earners.”

Other available housing options include; the single digit, 30-year mortgage loans to be provided by the Federal Mortgage Bank of Nigeria, rent-to-own options where beneficiaries can move in and pay towards homeownership in monthly, quarterly or annual installments, and outright purchases for high-income earners.

The President approved N100bn for the Ministry in the 2023 Supplementary budget and N18.9bn in the 2024 budget for the implementation of the Renewed Hope Cities and Estates as well as Urban and Slum Upgrading programmes.