By Jude Njoku

It was unarguably the greatest assemblage of built environment experts in the country in the recent past.

The setting was a two-day stakeholders workshop to validate the draft roadmap that would guide activities in the nation’s housing and urban development sector in the next 30 years.

The draft roadmap was prepared by a Ministerial Expert Group, MEG, headed by foremost housing guru and pioneer Managing Director of the Federal Housing Authority, FHA, Mr S.P.O. Fortune-Ebie.

The Minister for Lands, Housing and Urban Development, Mrs Akon Eyakenyi in her address, set the tone for the brainstorming session. Quoting President Goodluck Jonathan, Mrs Eyakenyi said “the roadmap will address the ramifications and complexities of unleashing a housing revolution in Nigeria within the shortest possible time.

It will also provide the pathway for transforming our cities into liveable and functional human settlements, serving as veritable platforms for advancing national integration and the good of humanity from one generation to another”.

The Minister explained that the roadmap will provide the pathway for navigating through the housing and urban development sector over the next 30 years, with a view to consolidating on the gains recorded under the present administration’s transformation agenda and making sustained, goal-oriented and innovative interventions to optimise the contribution of the sector to accelerated national development.

“Through the instrumentality of the roadmap, the culture of focusing almost exclusively on low-hanging fruits will be replaced with a new paradigm of action orientation, meticulous planning and well-articulated programmes for enhanced performance and impactful results towards repositioning the housing and urban development sector effectively as one of the key sectors for advancing the agenda of sustainable national development and prosperity,” she explained.

Tracing the genesis of the housing roadmap, Mrs Eyakenyi said its foundation was laid in December 2011 when a similar stakeholders conference validated the draft National Housing Policy and the draft Urban Development Policy.

“The two draft policies were subsequently approved for implementation by the Federal Executive Council in June 2012.

Thereafter, a Ministerial Implementation Team, MIT for housing delivery in Nigeria was constituted by the Ministry to provide modalities for translating the two policies into action.

It is in this regard that the Ministerial Implementation Team recommended the development of a roadmap for the Housing and Urban Development Sector as a strategic tool to set a clear direction for the transformation of the housing and urban development sector.

This is with a view to achieving the envisaged targets and aspirations for the sector, in both the short and long terms, as outlined in Vision 20:2020, the Transformation Agenda and other emerging National Development Plans,” she said

The Minister was elated that while the draft roadmap was being articulated, the National Planning Commission, NPC, commenced the process of developing a 30-year National Integrated Infrastructure Master Plan, NIIMP, which has also been approved by the Federal Executive Council.

“With the NIIMP now in place and its synergy with the roadmap, we are committed to the realisation of the sector aspiration and targets of the housing and regional development component of the plan document for the revitalisation and accelerated transformation of the housing and urban development sector,” she said.

Although Mr Ebie wasn’t physically present at the validation workshop, the draft roadmap was presented on his behalf by a former UN-Habitat Country Representative in Nigeria, Prof Johnson Falade.

Falade explained that the draft roadmap is anchored on nine strategic goals. Specifically, Goal One of the roadmap seeks to facilitate private sector-led delivery of 800,000 homes per annum over the next ten years while the second goal seeks to facilitate the implementation of special housing programme to promote the delivery of 200,000 units per annum for the next ten years.

Goal Three seeks to establish an information management system for planning, implementation, monitoring and evaluation of programmes and projects while the fourth goal seeks to establish and enforce building standards based on the National Building Code to ensure quality, functionality, aesthetics and safety.

Goal Five seeks to make serviced land with secure tenure easily available, accessible and transferable and at an affordable price for housing development. The sixth goal seeks to build adequate capacity for professionals and artisans in the built environment while the seventh goal targets making our cities and human settlements inclusive, productive, safe, liveable, resilient and sustainable.

The last two goals seek to transform the Ministry of Housing to operate as an industry regulator and the promotion of research and development.

Four sub committees on Housing, Lands, Urban Development and Management were later constituted to fine-tune the draft roadmap before it was eventually adopted.