Kuni Tyessi examines the impact of government policy on housing and notes that even the PPP scheme initiated by government may not remedy the problem, unless 40 percent of cost of housing is spent on infrastructure

Nigeria battles with a housing deficit which has being estimated to about 16 million. The number of people in need of shelter in urban and rural centres, on daily basis, far out numbers the rate of production of houses. Yet, housing remains one of the most  basic needs of man. The possession of house, apart from providing shelter and security is one of the parameters in which man gauges his fulfillment and economic wellbeing. For Nigeria, housing is one of the indices by which development is measured.

No nation which is determined to attain all round development can neglect housing as this is a crucial need. At its inception, the Yar’Adua administration underscored land reform as one of its seven point agenda. The rationale for this is to remove difficulties that may hamper the acquisition of land both for agriculture and for housing development. Government has gone ahead in this regard to initiate efforts at amending the Land Use Act which is enshrined in the constitution to make it easier for those with genuine need for land to acquire it.

The present administration in its first year, set up a committee on affordable housing which has recommended to government how to provide housing for Nigerians at affordable rates. The committee has since submitted its report and when the government comes out with its decisions on the recommendations, a road map for affordable home ownership would be available for all expectedly.

In this crusade of providing shelter for Nigerians, it is important that citizens are furnished with how much the federal government disburses to the housing sector of the economy, especially the Ministry of Works, as housing has been merged to it. This is necessary as it is well understood that the Federal Housing Authority, FHA, which is more or less the only recognised housing parastatal of the government, generates funds on its own with little or no support from the federal government.

The Federal Ministry of Works, Housing and Urban Development, serves as a parent body to three notable parastatals under its supervision namely: Federal Mortgage Bank of Nigeria, (FMBN) Federal Roads Maintenance Agency (FERMA) and the Federal Housing Authority (FHA). For while the Federal Mortgage Bank of Nigeria  is government owned and serves as a store house for the disbursement of loans and other approved financial engagements, FERMA tries to ensure that Nigerian roads are properly taken care of with funds gotten from the federal government. What about the Federal Housing Authority? One will be forced to ask.

The chairman of the board of trustees of FERMA, Engr. Abdulkhadir Kure, recently announced that toll gates will be brought back to the Nigerian highways and that this time, they will be electronically based as against the former. This is simply in a bid to supplement funds accessed from the federal government. This is a sublime thought as it has proven that government cannot do it all alone. Therefore, if roads which boost our agricultural efforts as well as our socio-political relations are in dire need of funds, how much more can be said about housing which is a basic need?

This goes a long way to prove that the Public Private Partnership (PPP) scheme initiated by the federal government to tackle the housing deficit in Nigeria will not be able to do much, especially in the provision of low-cost houses for low income earners. It is also not possible because the private organisations are profit driven as they would not want to invest into what has little or no profit.

Other ways are being explored on how to work with the private sector and prospective home owners to deliver affordable housing which would be made available to Nigerians, not only in the urban centers but for all wherever they choose to live. Experts have advised that about 40% of the cost of housing is spent on infrastructure.

The issue of housing can never be over emphasised in any developing country such as ours and history and statistics have proven that no amount of funds invested in this sector can be said to be too much. Only if the federal government can wake up to this clarion call in the provision of mass housing which can be affordable for all Nigerians, not even in the next ten years can the 16 million housing deficit be bridged..

Your Excellency, Mr. President,

All protocols observed,

Let me start by congratulating the organizers of this great launch for their foresight and well timed initiative. I have no doubt in my mind that the governors of the 19 states of the north who initiated this laudable move have the best interest of the north and the nation at heart. It is of course, their desire to see the virtues, ideals and dreams of the late premier of the north, Sir Ahmadu Bello are not only kept alive but realized in tangible terms. The caliber and share number of people in this venue is a testimony to the success of this noble idea of establishing a befitting foundation for the late premier with the aim of improving the lot of the people of the north in accordance with his lofty dreams.

Mr. President, although we are all in a celebration mood today, please permit me to digress a little to touch on salient issues concerning the north whose present deplorable condition, you will agree, will make the late sage we are celebrating cry were he to be alive today. This is because of the auspicious timing and rich presence of the northern economic, political and oligarchic classes together with the ordinary northerners in this spacious avenue. Suffice is to say that all categories of northerners are gathered here and any speech here will be easily embedded into the fabric of the entire north and by extension, the nation. I will, with your permission take the issues one by one and in no particular order of importance as they are all important as you will see later.

The intention of Sir Ahmadu Bello was to have a free, developed and egalitarian nation state that would cater for its citizens responsibly and equitably. Here, we will ask ourselves whether that agenda point of the premier has been achieved despite the solid foundation stones he had laid and 43 years after his demise. Are we free, developed or egalitarian yet? Have we found our own rhythm as equal partners in the affairs of the nation as envisaged by him? If not, who is to blame?

The north of the Sardauna was a union of ethnic nationalities, religious faiths and beliefs, a diverse cultural pot and a nation of positive possibilities with a common, united goal of being a prosperous, unified and peaceful part of a united, strong and virile Nigeria. The foundations for such lofty ideals were laid down by the Sardauna himself ably assisted by his lieutenants from across the region irrespective of tribe, class or religion. From education to health, banking, the media, infrastructure, the Sardauna laid a solid foundation for a prosperous nation state. What was left was for the succeeding generations of leaders to cement and build upon the foundation he had left behind.  That is where we have failed, if the truth must be told.

It was the Sardauna that laid the foundation of sound education in the whole of the north which most of the leaders in this pavilion including you, Mr. President enjoyed while it lasted. He established a very strong educational system comparable to any, in any part of the world. But what has become of the schools; primary, secondary, tertiary and universities he had established for the benefit of the north? Have they not turned into pitiful and laughable caricatures with little resemblance to institutions of learning they were originally intended to be? What did the leaders of the north do to protect and preserve these institutions so that they can continue to provide quality education to the teeming youth of the north and the country who are the leaders of tomorrow?

Sir, our north has been depleted by our inability to grasp the many opportunities that came our way in the course of national development and history in both the military and civilian eras. Having dominated the leadership of the country by more than seventy percent of our post independence life, the region's leadership should have focused themselves into harnessing the potentialities abound and setting the region on a sound footing for both socio-economic and technological transformation.

While Rivers State voted more than four hundred billion for this year's budget, the average budget of a northern state is not more than one hundred billion with states like Jigawa voting just about seventy. This, in a nutshell shows you where the milk is being drawn. When the region's agricultural and mineral potentialities have been ignored and left fallow for resources coming from the under belly of the restless Niger delta region, the northerners have no option than to swallow their pride and become crumb pickers and glorified parasites in their own country. This is in sharp contrast with Bello's mission statement as far as the region was concerned.

Tell me why do we continue to fight ourselves in the name of religion and ethnicity? Didn't the late premier take all northerners as his children? Didn't he have as his children Michael Audu Buba, Tylley Gyado, Sunday Awoniyi, Shehu Shagari, Solomon Lar, Aliyu Makama, Shehu Malami and many from different parts of the north? Why must a Kataf man hate a Hausa man and vice-versa; why did the Fulani herds men become endangered species on the plateau, why does an Ilorin man find it difficult to settle down in Taraba? What about the Jukuns and Katafs, the Kanuri and the Bachamas? Why is there unease and suspicion between the Kontagora man and the Bida man? Sir, what happened to Bello's north that was monolithic and united to a fault?

Why are religion and tribalism becoming agents of division and fighting often crystallizing into dangerous feuds resulting in very high number of casualties among Bello's brethren? What are we all doing to stop these ugly incidents? Why are we producing half baked graduates, incompetent legislators and other leaders?

Our compatriots across the Niger look at us with disdain; they see us as parasites, uncompromising, ill educated and yet arrogant. They see us as trouble makers, empty vessels, religious fanatics and those of us in the corridors of power, as clowns. Why are we so hypocritical in our behaviors; behaving as holier than thou when we are in our immediate enclave and ransacking and painting the city red when we go out of our environment? Why do we do with alacrity, what we prohibit in our backyard when we get to other people's backyard? Why are we so intolerant of others while we make maximum utilization of other people's tolerance and benevolence?

Sir, one thing that is in the minds of many is the culture of indolence and begging that has become endemic and synonymous with Ahmadu Bello's north. Our people have become the main attraction on the streets and at roundabouts of all cities in the country and even beyond because of their obsession with street begging. While our compatriots are busy sweating at the same spots selling wares to elk a living, ours are at the mercy of handouts from willing and often insulting motorists. Begging has become synonymous with our part of Nigeria and indolence has become an adjective of our collective description. How can Sir Ahmadu Bello survive a minute of this madness that has become the hall mark of his beloved north?

What about the issue of our youths? A new phenomenon called area boyism has crept into our society and has since become a cancerous problem for us. Many of them are here in this venue busy emptying pockets of many who have graced this occasion. They are seen everywhere harassing everybody they come across with. They welcome you with broken voices at the airport, harass you when you park at the supermarket and threaten you even in your office. They are always heavy and drunken from the effects of drugs and other dangerous narcotics.  Sir, tell me the solution to this problem because these young lads have, under our watch, constituted themselves into armies of harassment and intimidation while they always graduate to armed robbers menacing our highways, killing and maiming innocent citizens.

The average northerner today is, whether we like it or not, almost a laughing stock in the country. Sir, we the political class must take the blame for a larger proportion of the problems. Under our watch, issues highlighted above and many others have become permanent features in our region with no end in sight.  Parochialism, ethnic chauvinism and religious bigotism have become character traits of both the leadership and the followership of our dear north.

Sir, let this launch be the injection that will turn our collective resolve to turn our region once again to a productive and peaceful nation state with unlimited potentialities and opportunities. Let there be peace and harmony in our north and our country beginning from this launch. Let us make the Sardauna and other founding members of the north smile in their graves as we turn the region into a giant of education, industrialisation and a model for development and unity. Only this will justify today's gigantic effort of our governors and other leaders in launching this foundation. God bless the north and God bless Nigeria.

Maishanu, Sokoto State Commissioner of Information, was to  deliver this speech during the recent launch of Sardauna Foundation,but could not do so due to unforeseen emergencies.

We members of Education Rights Campaign (ERC) appeal for the cancellation of the new fees introduced at the Ambrose Alli University (AAU) and the reopening of the university so that academic work can commence. Comrade Adams Oshiomhole had severally stated that his government's top priority was education, even before coming to power. We want to state clearly that fee-hike is not in the interest of Edo State students because it amounts to worsening the state of poverty.

We wish to state that Edo State students and ERC members in Edo State and across the federation supported and worked tirelessly to bring your administration (Comrade Adams Oshiomhole) to power because we wanted a clean break from the period of education underfunding, education commercialisation and attendant fee-hike. Edo State students and youths deserve to be well-trained in order to move the economy forward, and that can only be possible if education is massively funded to guarantee free and quality education. We are at a loss as to why your administration that came to power on popular support of the masses and students will turn round to unleash attack on students even worse than the previous Edo State PDP led-governments, seen as anti-people governments.

The fees formerly paid ranged between N20, 000 and N30, 000, but have now been increased to between N54,000 and N100,000, depending on the course of study. We reject the fee-hike in Ambrose Alli University and demand immediate cancellation. We arrived at this position considering the fact that students and their parents/guardians are groining under the present tax regime and also the growing state of unemployment and under-employment. If an average teacher earns about N30,000 monthly, how could he or she pay N60,000 or N100,000 as fees for his/her children, considering the ever increasing cost of living such as transportations, housing, feeding, etc? We should also remember that some parents have more than one student at the university and some at the private primary and secondary schools where they are forced to pay cut-throat fees because of long-term neglect of public education.

A barrel of crude oil that was formerly sold at $50 per barrel is currently $80 leaving us with excess resources that should be ploughed into education. We strongly feel that the cost of running a government is outrageously high, but this is not peculiar to Edo State. We want the state to set a new example. The jumbo allowances and salaries of political officeholders, which currently make them to live far above those they represent, should be reduced to the average wage of a skilled worker and the excesses ploughed back to the funding of education and infrastructure development. We are of the view that your administration should probe previous governments' financial dealings with the aim of retrieving money stolen and embezzled in order to be channelled to education.

We are calling for the democratisation of decision-making organ of Ambrose Alli University such that elected representatives of staff (senior and junior) and students, which should be subjected to recall at anytime, run the affairs of the university. With this measure, all public funds will be judiciously used in order to forestall corrupt and arbitrary practices that have become the hallmark of our higher institutions

We also recall that you were at the centre of the resolution of the face-off between the federal government and the Academic Staff Union of Universities ASUU in education funding. The agreement reached compels the government to steadily increase funding to education up to 26 per cent of annual budget. We recall that you promised that your government would be the first among the states to implement the agreement. The outrageous fees-hike diametrically runs contrary to this promise and the agreement you helped secured.

We, therefore, call on the Edo State Government to increase funding of education to 26 per cent UNESCO recommendation aimed at providing adequate facilities and also motivating workers by paying a living wage in order to guarantee quality public education from primary to tertiary level. Anything short of this will amount to attack on the inalienable rights of students to free and quality education.

We shall be glad if our appeal is duly considered.

• Bosah And Soweto wrote in from Ambrose Ali University, Ekpoma, Edo State