Muhammadu Buhari, a Nigerian politician and retired army general who served as president of the country from 2015 to 2023, will be remembered for promoting social housing, even though all his efforts could not reduce the country’s housing deficit.

Social housing is provided for people on low income or with particular needs by government agencies or non-profit organisations. Apart from President Shehu Shagari who was a ‘low-cost housing champion,’ President Buhari, more than others before him, left some footprints on social housing in some parts of the country, especially the North.

Two years into his presidency, precisely in 2017, the Buhari administration launched the Family Homes Funds Limited (FHFL) as a social housing intervention programme with the mandate to raise and invest, within five years, N1.3 trillion ($3 billion) in the development of 500,000 homes for people on low income.

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In the process, the company was expected to create up to 1,500,000 jobs and enable homeownership through its creative products.

The Fund financed the development of about 11,700 homes for low-Income earners across several states in Nigeria, including Delta, Ogun, Kano, Nasarawa, Kaduna, Yobe, Bauchi, Borno, Adamawa, and created up to 64,000 direct and indirect jobs in the process. However, it took the administration almost six years to achieve this.

In July 2021, the Fund completed the issue of N10 billion under the N30 billion Sukuk Issuance Programme, targeting affordable housing development. That programme was the first ever certified corporate Sukuk issued in Nigeria and it was expected to provide the necessary support for FHF’s goal of providing affordable homes across Nigeria.

Though the funds impacted many lives, according to Association of Housing Corporation of Nigeria, especially in the northern part of the country where it has done social housing most, it could not deliver on its mandate of 500,000 in five years.

“Despite Nigeria’s efforts, the country is still burdened with about 28 million housing deficit, according to World Bank estimates. The country’s homeownership level remains low at 25 percent as against 84 percent in Indonesia, 75 percent in Kenya and 56 percent in South Africa,” Funsho Adewole, a housing market analyst, told BusinessDay.

Continuing, Adewole said, “Most low-income Nigerians still do not have their own houses despite Buhari’s efforts coupled with his promise in 2015 to deliver one million housing units yearly. This means that Buhari’s best in eight years was neither good nor impactful enough to change the Nigerian housing story.”

The Buhari government also made attempts at providing homes for more low-income Nigerians with the launch of a National Housing Programme (NHP), but this too failed because it was not implemented with the commitment it needed.

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According to Bashir Alkali, permanent secretary at the Ministry of Works and Housing at the time, the aim of the programme was to provide a scheme that was affordable, accessible and acceptable.

Of the 6,000 housing projects which the programme initiated in 45 sites, only 2,665 were completed in 35 states and the Federal Capital Territory (FCT).

The reality of housing needs among Nigerians dawned on the Buhari government when 5,000 housing units of the programme were put on the market and interested buyers were asked to subscribe to them.

Adewole recalled that a portal through which subscriptions were made was unveiled on November 12, 2021 and, in just one week, the houses were oversubscribed up to 7,315 applications.

“Perhaps, it could have been more but for two reasons. One was that the conditions for accessing the houses were a bit stringent as subscribers were required to provide passport photographs, tax clearance and means of clear identification, N10, 000 application fee, amongst others. Secondly, of the 1,2 and 3-bedroom bungalows on offer, the cheapest, which was a one-bedroom apartment, was put up for N7 million which made the houses not ‘affordable’ to most of the target buyers,” he said.