The Association of Housing Corporation of Nigeria (AHCN) has revealed that in the first quarter of 2025, the real estate sector contributed 17.4 per cent to Nigeria’s gross domestic product (GDP).

The president of the AHCN, Eno Obongha, made this known yesterday while presenting a ‘State of the Nation’s Housing Address’ to mark this year’s World Habitat Day, in Abuja. He stated that it was projected that the real estate sector could grow at six to eight per cent in 2025, with urbanisation, infrastructure investments, and unmet housing demand.

Obongha called on the federal and state governments to put more efforts as well as interventions to housing development, especially in the urban centres, adding, that it can change the negative narratives of housing deficit to massive large scale housing provision backed up with deliberate affordability structures.

The president, who also lamented the government’s inability to act proactively to avert building collapses, noted that we need a nation where appropriate action is taken by our government officials to prevent unnecessary building collapse calamities and unwarranted demolition, which is usually accompanied by loss of resources and pain of displacement.

He said that while the federal and state governments, alongside Private Developers and housing corporations, have embarked on various initiatives aimed at bridging the housing deficit, from new estate projects to urban renewal schemes and policy reforms, the period under review highlights a mixed picture of progress, innovation, and continuing obstacles.

While also commending the federal government under the Renewed Hope Housing Programme (REHHP), which he said is a three-tier model comprising Cities, Estates, and Social Housing, Obongha explained that the Ministry of Housing and Urban Development has been able to commence, in just two years, over 10,000 housing units across 14 states and the FCT.

He further called on the state houses of assembly to amend the housing corporations laws in their states in order to drive mass housing delivery in their states. He also lamented that at the state government level, not much has been recorded in the provision of affordable housing in virtually all the states within the last year.

SOURCE: LEADERSHIP NEWS PAPER

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