Stakeholders in the built environment have revealed that 60 per cent of Nigerians reside in slums.
This was disclosed by the stakeholders at the 33rd Lagos Builders’ Conference and annual general meeting held recently in Lagos, with the theme: “Breaking Barriers and Empowering Change in Nigeria’s Real Estate Sector: Process and Control”, according to The Punch.
Prof. Timothy Nubi from the Department of Estate Management at the University of Lagos noted “We need to be sincere with ourselves; over 60 per cent of Nigerians live in slums, which is a deplorable condition.
“We are all homeless if one of us is homeless, and we cannot move this nation forward as long as the majority of the citizens live in slums. There is no doubt that we have failed the generation after us.”
According to Nubi, regeneration is the preferred approach over urban renewal, which often results in evictions and displaces residents.
He emphasized that many slums exist because people are desperate to reside within urban centers.
“Unfortunately and in most cases, these slums are on prime lands, mostly waterfronts, like Makoko, among others,” he declared.
Also, the Chief Executive Officer of Fame Oyster & Co., Olufemi Oyedele stated that the percentage of slum dwellers in Nigeria has reached 60 per cent.
He added, “Slums are squalid or overcrowded settlements of people. Suppose the World Bank reports that we live in overcrowded houses in Nigeria because we have over 18 million housing deficits, and 18 million three-bedroom units will accommodate 72 million people, whereas four people live in three-bedroom units. In that case, about 60 per cent are living in slums across Nigeria.”
The Local Organising Committee Chairman for the conference, Abiodun Ogundare, explained, “We started this exciting journey from the year 2022 with ‘The Legacy Conference Island 2022 Shifting Landscape’. Then that reinvigorated us in the year 2023 for the Heritage Conference-Island 2023 tagged ‘Safe & Sustainable Building Production Management in Nigeria’ and we still found out that there is still a barrier and the best thing to do with the barrier is to break it.
“Hence, in 2024, we have the Resilience Conference—Island 2024—to break the barrier of financial/investment startups for real estate development, break the barrier of real investment challenges and empower for changes that are coming; these are aims and objectives of this conference.”
Last year, the Minister of Housing and Urban Development, Mr. Ahmed Dangiwa, announced that the Federal Government plans to upgrade 26 slums across the six regions of the country to enhance the living standards of residents and support the urban poor.
He made this statement during his keynote address at the 12th meeting of the National Council on Lands, Housing, and Urban Development in Kaduna State.
