The Federal Housing Authority (FHA) has marked its 50th Anniversary celebration of the Authority at the International Conference Centre, in Abuja, Nigeria’s capital
Minister of Housing and Urban Development, Ahmed Musa Dangiwa at the celebration charged FHA to wake up to its responsibility and key into the Renewed Hope Agenda for Housing and Urban Development to offer more value to Nigerians.
He said by becoming more impactful, the FHA can become a tool for large-scale Housing delivery across all income segments of the Nigerian population.
Dangiwa said the 50th anniversary should be a moment of sober reflection for the management and staff of the agency, and all housing stakeholders, and a time to decide to key into the speed, vibrancy, and momentum of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu.
“Records show that FHA has only delivered a cumulative of just over 50,000 housing units. That shows an average of 1,000 houses per year in 50 years. This is not acceptable, especially from Nigeria’s foremost housing agency that has so many institutional advantages that it can leverage to deliver more results. Last month, during the Shelter Afrique EGM in Algeria, I discovered from my engagements with the Algerian Government that an Agency like the FHA delivers between 400,000 and 1m houses annually. In fact, in a particular year, that Agency delivered 1,060,000 houses. This underscores the need for FHA to aggressively upscale its delivery capacity,” he said.
While he congratulated the FHA for marking 50 years of existence, he charged the leadership to be visionary and innovative, with the capacity to think outside the box in tackling the enormous housing crisis in the country. “We can see this from the progressive, agenda-setting, and performance-driven leadership style of His Excellency, President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, GCFR. Today, we are celebrating the Renewed Hope for the Federal Housing Authority.
“The fact that FHA is marking its 50th anniversary just six months into the administration of His Excellency, President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, is not only a pleasant coincidence but a golden opportunity for us to begin the process of writing a different, more progressive story for the next 50-years of the institution. Under the Renewed Hope Vision of His Excellency, President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, GCFR, we want to see a reformed, more efficient, and capable Federal Housing Authority (FHA) that would have the financial strength to deliver more on its mandate,” he added.
Dangiwa added that the FHA has the advantage of operating across all income segments and must take advantage of its unique position to deliver more value to the government and Nigerians.
“I want to see the FHA go to the capital market, issue bonds, and raise funding to deliver mass housing projects across the country, market them, pay back the loans, and declare profit. In the next fifty years, we expect that FHA would be celebrating millions of homes built and successfully delivered to Nigerians,” he said.
The former Head of State, General Yakubu Gowon (rtd), in his address, said providing shelter to Nigerians is still a priority today as it was 50 years ago, and even more so given rapid population growth. Commending the FHA for its efforts and achievements over the decades, Gowon noted that there is so much more work to do.
Also speaking, the former Minister of Works and Housing, Babatunde Raji Fashola (SAN), noted that the FHA must begin to take a demand-driven approach to embark on sustainable housing delivery.
“I hold the view that if these assets are properly valued, titled and managed they can unlock vast financial resources for FHA to build more estates, sell or mortgage them, recoup the outlay, pay off any debts, and make profit. In this way, FHA can become a proper business run on very strict corporate governance principles that conform with global best practice and this will be consistent with previous attempts to commercialise or privatise the authority,”he added.
The Managing Director of the FHA, Senator Gbenga Ashafa stressed that the Authority is already implementing operational reforms in the areas of digitization and process optimisation, noting that they must build on the successes of the past to deliver more houses to Nigerians that are decent and affordable.
