The Centre On Housing Rights and Evictions (COHRE ) has decried the prohibitive cost of housing in Nigeria.

COHRE’s Programme Coordinator in Nigeria, Mr Eyong Sunday, made the remark while speaking recently at a one-day interactive session on ‘Strengthening Media Capacity Towards Effective Coverage of Housing Rights Issues and Violations in Nigeria’, in Abuja.

He noted that most of the so-called low cost housing scheme in Nigeria were not low cost in the real sense of it, as they are mostly priced beyond the reach of the common man.

Sunday disclosed that housing rights beyond having the right to access to shelter, also included the following indivisible, interdependent and interrelated human rights – right to adequate housing, right to adequate standard of living, right to access to safe drinking water and sanitation, human right to the highest attainable standard of physical and mental health and right to a safe and healthy environment.

Others, he noted, include the human right of the child to an environment appropriate for physical and mental development; human right to access to resources, including energy for cooking, heating, and lighting; human right of access to basic services, schools, transportation and employment options; human right to affordability in housing, such that other basic needs are not threatened or compromised; human right to freedom from discrimination in access to housing and related services based on sex, race and ethnicity or any other status.

Sunday further remarked that adequate housing must provide more than four walls and a roof, noting that some of the houses in Nigeria are not really houses. According to him, a good house must at the least, include the following seven elements: Security of tenure, which guarantees legal protection against forced eviction, harassment and other threats; Availability of services and infrastructure- essential for health, security, comfort and nutrition; Affordability, in-terms of costs associated with acquiring housing and; Habitability, in terms of comfort and conducive living conditions.