By Chris Ochayi

In its effort to abridge the challenge of housing deficit facing the nation, the Real Estate Developers Association of Nigeria, REDAN, is set to collaborate with the National Bureau of Statistics, NBS and National Population Commission, NPC, with a view to obtaining accurate statistics on the housing situation in Nigeria.

President of REDAN, Mr. Olabode Afolayon who disclosed this while speaking with Vanguard Homes & Property in Abuja, said the collaboration between the relevant agencies is a major step towards addressing the multifarious difficulties associated with housing construction and development in Nigeria.

He explained that the process if finalised, will enable REDAN to have an idea of the volume of  houses required, the kind of  houses required and the location of houses  that need to be built as well as those intended to be built in some particular locations within the six geo-political zones.

“Llooking at the sub-sector or the sector in perspective, you will discover that one, we have a deficit even though we can not actually confirm  the exact figure because we do not have imperative data.

But now we have decided that the organisation should commence a process through which we can have an idea of the volume of  houses required, the kind of  houses required and the location of houses  that needed to be built as well as those intended to be built. I have made attempts to  meet up with an opportunity to have a concrete position of the  housing structure in Nigeria.

We have started a relationship with National Bureau of Statistics.We have decided to work together;  in the next couple of days I will forward to them, a nomination of nine members because we have decided to have a committee in that process.

“We believe that will help every body, investors, even those of us in the sub-sector, because we will not just start building houses that will not be affordable to the people or that will not be functional to the people.

But by and large when you look at the sector you will discover that there is  much to be done and we should not just disturb our selves about deficit, we need to talk about a lot of things like acquisition process for land, technology and all sort of things in respect of housing delivery,” he said..

Continuing, the REDAN boss said: “We visited them recently and we enumerated some of these challenges that as an investor, we need information, that as a people we need information and that as a government we need information to enable us develop our country, our census and our people.

We realised that as an organization saddled with the responsibility of providing statistical information, as a person or as an institution or as an investor you can work into the National Bureau of Statistics and demand to know the number of houses in so so location or I need to know the income of those group of people living in that location”.

On alleged abuse of lands allocated to developers for mass houses, Mr. Afolayan challenged the authorities to publish names of developers who got land under the mass housing scheme, because his members cannot involved in land racketeering.

Claiming that REDAN members cannot sell lands allocated for mass building to individuals, he said, “let them publish the names of these people who got the land under the mass housing scheme and let us know if they are my members.