ISSUES AND CHALLENGES IN THE EXECUTION OF PUBLIC SECTOR HOUSING PROJEC…

        Unfortunately
the reverse is the case as in spite of the policies, institutions and
regulations which various Nigerian Governments have put in place since
independence; there is still dearth of housing for low income segment. A recent
study of housing situation in Nigeria put existing housing stock at 23 per 1000
inhabitant. Housing deficit is put at 15 million housing units (Mabogunje,
2007) while 12 trillion naira will be required to finance the deficit. This is
about 4 times the annual budget of Nigeria (FHA, 2007). Housing is of supreme
importance to man and one of the best indicators of a person’s standard of
living and his place in society. However, at no point has it been adequately
supplied either quantitatively or qualitatively (Jiboye 2009; Omoniyi &
Jiboye, 2011). Over time, the need for adequate shelter has continued to attract
global attention especially in developing countries where the urbanization
process has been growing at an alarming rate. The phenomenal rise in
population, increase in number and size of most cities in the past decades have
led to acute shortage of adequate dwelling units in many urban centres globally
(Jiboye, 2009).

Consequently, in recent time, the issue of
housing has formed part of the major discussion in several global summits such
as the 1992 Rio-de Janeiro summit on environment and development, the 1996
Habitat summit at Istanbul, the 2000 New York, United Nations Millennium
Development Goals (MDGS) summit, 2002 World Summit in Johannesburg and the 2005
La Havana, UN sustainable Cities Documentation of Experience Programme
(Oladunjoye, 2005; UN-Habitat, 2007; UNDPI, 2008).

        Nigeria,
like other developing countries is saddled with uncontrollable growth of the
urban population caused by lack of provision of infrastructural facilities and
poor economic conditions in the rural areas. The proportion of the Nigerian
population living in urban centres has increased phenomenally from 7% in the
1930s, 10% in 1950, 20% in 1970, 27% in 1980 to 35% in 1990

(Okupe, 2002). Over 40% of Nigerians now
live in urban centres of varying sizes. The incidence of this population in
urban centres has created severe housing problems, resulting in overcrowding in
inadequate dwellings, and in a situation in which 60% of Nigerians can be said
to be “houseless persons” (Federal Government of Nigeria, 2004).

        Besides
the incidence of overcrowding in the existing housing stock, rural-urban drift
has occasioned the sprouting of make shift dwellings or squatter settlements in
cities that are devoid of minimum structural and normative quality. Majority of
the houses are constructed with all sorts of refuse/second-hand materials in
illegally occupied self allocated land, they are badly maintained and lack the
basic necessities of life like sanitary facilities, light, air and privacy. As
evidenced by past researches in housing studies, most urban centres in the
country are characterized by high density buildings, acute sanitary problems,
pollution of air, surface water, noise and solid wastes (Filani, 1987, Agbola,
1998). According to Olotuah (2002) estimated 2.3 million urban dwelling units
are substandard, only 33% of urban houses can be considered to be physically
sound, and 44% and 19% require minor and major repairs respectively to bring
them to normative and structural quality. Despite all efforts of the government
at achieving sustained housing delivery to the common people, existing
realities indicate the goal is far from being achieved. It is against this
background that this research examines the major issues and challenges of
execution of public sector housing in Nigeria with a view to stimulating
relevant agencies of government and other stakeholders into designing
appropriate strategies for effective execution of public sector housing in
Nigeria.

1.2   STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM

        In
many developing countries, including Nigeria, urban housing crisis is
escalating unabated despite a number of new policies, programs and strategies
being engaged in by public and private sectors aimed at execution of public sector housing in addressing this problem (Okupe,
2002). Since execution of public
sector housing is
principally carried out by government agencies and their collaborators, the researcher
argues that one vital step to addressing myriads of issues and challenges in execution of public sector housing in Nigeria is to identify areas of
weakness in public housing agencies and subsequently address such weakness for
enhanced productivity (Jiboye, 2009). It is for this reason that the study
investigated the contextual and organizational challenges related to execution of public sector housing in Nigeria in the post independence era.