Wealthy mansions abound in Nigeria, while the poor go without housing
Nigeria is an amazing mess, fifteen years after the re-establishment of democracy, and 54 years after independence.
Corruption reigns from the presidency downwards. US$20 billions of revenue disappeared over 18 months from the Nigerian National Petroleum Corp., according to ex-central bank governor Lamido Sanuisi. The northeast is in thrall to the Islamist terror organization Boko Haram. The police are abusive, violent, and corrupt. Power cuts are frequent, the roads ill-maintained. The press is under threat. The president systematically impeaches opposition governors. The south periodically wonders whether it should separate from the chaotic north.
Colonized by the British, Nigeria gained its independence in 1960. The country’s oil industry boomed in the 1970s, making Nigeria Africa’s largest oil exporter. But with the world recession of the 1980s oil prices plunged, leading to a cycle of massive debt, soaring inflation, and large-scale unemployment. The oil price is now surging again, but little trickles down to the masses.
61% of Nigerians lived on less than a dollar a day in 2010, up from 52% in 2004, according to the most recent poverty survey by the Nigerian National Bureau of Statistics (NBS).
That’s partly why, despite being the largest economy in Africa, Nigeria’s housing and construction sector only accounts for only 3.1% of GDP, according to Finance Minister Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala.
Housing construction is about 100,000 units per year for a country of over 170 million – the largest population in Africa. According to the World Bank, the country has a housing deficit of about 17 million units and needs about 700,000 additional units each year for the next 20 years.
There are three main structural reasons for the state of Nigeria’s property market: property registration is expensive, housing construction is handicapped by high costs, and few can access mortgage finance.
