4.75million houses in Lagos

Nigeria’s Lagos State has 4.75 million houses, according to Mr Bosun Jeje, the Commissioner for housing.

Jeje said this while delivering a keynote address at the Construction Stakeholders Parley in Lagos with the theme “Bridging the 16 million National Housing Deficits: the Dry Construction Solution“.

He said three million of the houses are residential, while the rest were churches, mosques and for commercial enterprises.

Jeje did not indicate when the enumeration of houses was carried out.

“The need to bridge any housing gap informed the State Government’s involvement in the construction of houses with the critical engagement of the private sector.

“And this government effort is yielding results with many houses being constructed in Igando, Surulere, Ijora Badiya and Lekki among others,” he said.

According to him, Nigeria has an estimated 16 million housing deficit of which Lagos State has a short fall of five million.

He said that there was the need to find ways of overcoming the main challenges of mass housing development through dry construction system.

The commissioner said that dry construction system embraced modern techniques of construction and that it could be one system that could achieve mass construction of houses.

“Dry construction system is the best system we need to combat our mass housing deficit problem, but it will only be effective with stability in other sectors of our economy,“ he said.

Jeje said that it was imperative that the parley “charts a new way for housing construction in the country.“

Mr Femi Olaiya, the Managing Partner of Redwood Consulting, organisers of the parley, said that reduction of cost and time of constructing houses should be what professionals should strive for. According to him, the main challenges of mass housing development are project cost, maintaining standards and ensuring timely delivery.

Mr Segun Ajanlekoko, former President, Association of Professional Bodies of Nigeria (APBN), said that “dry construction system“ would be meaningless with other sectors of the economy in comatose.

He said that the nation’s financial, industrial and energy sectors must be operating optimally for dry construction system to be efficiently applicable.