By Kingsley Adegboye

To equip real estate developers across Nigeria with in-depth industry knowledge, innovative insights, and practical strategies, University of Lagos Centre for Housing and Sustainable Development CHSD, in collaboration with Real Estate Developers’ Association REDAN, last week concluded a five-week capacity building programme for the first batch of REDAN trainees.

Speaking at the graduation ceremony and networking of the maiden edition of the certification course, REDAN President, Prince Akintoye Adeoye, noted that the essence of the programme is education on developers’ business, saying “We need to know the new development happening in the sector, and we need to be updated because knowledge is not stagnant and we need to be updated in what we are doing because ignorance is costly.

“It is in the place of leadership to design programmes that are very important to the members of our association. We embarked on this because of gaps. Among us, we are different people. Some of us are lawyers, doctors, secondary school leavers and others that are into real estate development. All of us are developers because of interest but not all of us have the required knowledge about our sector. This is why updating our knowledge about day to day happenings in the industry is very germaine to our business.

“Currently, we have about 5000 members but we cannot bring all of them here. The training is paid for and in batches. This is the first batch. The second batch of the programme will start their training next week.

“We had MoU with Unilag. Some other people developed the curriculum with our own inputs because I have been in the sector for 33 years now, so I know what will help us. We also inquire from members to know what we will focus on in the training.”

On the impact of the training on REDAN members, Adeoye said “One thing I can assure you is that the programme has exposed our members to a lot of things some of us did not know about our business before now. Starting from our trainers who include government officials and people from private sector, we have Dr. Salako who was a Commissioner for Lagos state Ministry of Physical Planning and Urban Development and now owns private practice.

“We have experienced lecturers from Unilag’s Centre for Housing and Sustainable Developemt. During the training of the first batch, we had a director from Stock and Exchange Commission SEC, and another director Economic and Financial Crimes Commission EFCC who lectured us on money laundering.

“So, with this training, we have been exposed to some of the things we did not know about our business before, and we now know better when taking certain decisions about our business.”

On plans to expand their business, REDAN boss said the market for real estate business in Nigeria is quite huge, considering the housing deficit of about 20 million units, pointing out that even some developers selling houses do not have houses of their own. Some of them still live as tenants. It will shock you to know that 75 percent of Nigerians still live as tenants. The market is very huge and we want more people to join us as developers.

According to him, “The training is mandatory, Lagos state government and other state governments are endorsing it. If you don’t pass through training, it will be difficult for you to do business. We hear of building collapse every day. This training will also expose you to what to do to check building collapse from the beginning of any property under construction.”

On job creation, he said there is no business that provides job opportunities like real estate business.

Also explaining the reason for the programme, Director, Centre for Housing and Sustainable Development, Prof. Timothy Nubi, said the essence of the training is to let members of REDAN, particularly fresh developers coming into the industry understand the mission and vission of the association.

According to Prof. Nubi, “But in the recent time as we are increasing, there is loss of focus in our existence. Things are changing and thre is need for us to move with the changing trend. This is the essence of the programme.

“We have been training them on core courses. We started with courses such as introduction to REDAN, the objective, history and evolution of REDAN. So, we look at economic outlook, and we brought all professionals that are experienced in building environment so that an average REDAN member will be an informed person.

“Our desire is that our REDAN members in different organisations will deliver perfectly. Our satisf-action is that you are trained and you know what you are doing. All over social media, there are a lot of complaints that an average REDAN members is a scammer which is not good for the industry.

“We have thought a lot of things. The president of the female lawyers in realestate thought them about compliance and to round up the training, we took the last three days to be physical about what we did not teach them in the classroom. We took them to the regulatory agencies in Lagos here to be taught the processes.

“No body among those who went through the training will leave here today and say he or she does not know what is required of him or her when it comes to real estate business. We initiated discussion with the regulatory agencies and many of them are very thankful. A lot of the trained REDAN members were able to discuss their challenges and the agencies attended to them and said going forward, we will need to work together.

“They told us that Lagos state has register of land holding families with their pictures and signatures, that whenever REDAN members who want to buy land comes, they are ready to assist to purchase from any of the family lands,” Nubi said..