Enugu raises workers hope for homeownership, plans to build 2,500 houses

Enugu State government has raised hope of homeownership among its citizens with the revelation of its plan to build 2,500 housing units for low and high income earners in its civil service.

The state’s commissioner for Lands and Urban Development, Solomon Onah, who disclosed this at a ceremony to mark the commencement of the sale of forms for 500 plots of land, also revealed that the state government would be spending N37.5 billion to construct these houses.

Onah said that twin duplexes and bungalows would be built on the 500 plots of land located at the New Independence Layout, along the Enugu-Port Harcourt Expressway in Enugu.

Meanwhile, the Real Estate Developers Association of Nigeria (REDAN) has said that Nigeria needs between 250,000 and 300,000 housing units annually for the next 20 years to be able to solve its housing deficit.

The association has come up with new estimates on how much it would take to solve the nations’ housing deficit which, according its National Vice President and Chairman, REDAN South-West zone,. Taiwo Ogunbodede, is over N50 trillion

Ogunbodede was quick to remind developers to focus on quality not quantity, saying, “we haven’t done more than 300,000 yearly and this is insignificant compared to the 17million deficit that we have to tackle as a country. In spite of the deficit, attention must be on quality and not just quantity”.

CHUKA UROKO