By Jude Njoku

A memorandum of understanding, MoU, signed last year between the Centre for Management Development, CMD, and West Atlantic Corporation to train mortgage and real estate practitioners has crystallized into the birth of Mortgage and Real Estate Academy, MOREACADEMY, which opens its doors for academic activities in Lagos and Abuja next month.

The public-private-partnership, PPP which gave birth to the academy, is parts of efforts by the Federal Government to to sanitise and professionalise the mortgage and real estate industry in Nigeria.

Speaking at a media briefing to formally launch the Academy’s brochure, the Coordinator of the MOREACADEMY and Managing Director of West Atlantic Corporations, Prince Ade Akinfolurin explained that the institution was set up to offer training and certification to all mortgage and real estate practitioners in Nigeria.

“Over the years, the nation has suffered material, human and economic losses, because the industry has been left in the hands of quacks. Professionals are less than 50 percent of those offering mortgage and real estate services in the country, which is why there have been lots of fraudulent practices in the industry, resulting in collapse of buildings, loss of precious lives and loss of billions of revenue which should have accrued to the government,”he said.

Prince Akinfolurin stated that every economy in the world is measured by the number and sophistication of real properties that litter its landscape as well as quality of properties belonging to the citizens.

“Without a properly planned and professionally managed housing system, citizens would be struggling. That is why in Nigeria today, you see people working in Abuja but have to commute daily all the way from Kaduna. Similarly, a lot of people to live in Mowe or Ibafo or even close to Abeokuta, from where they come to work in Lagos. If they all have opportunities of living in Lagos, they will not live elsewhere,” he asserted.

He posited that this trend can only be reversed through a veritable institution that will guarantee necessary capacity building programme capable of taking Nigeria’s young real estate and mortgage industry to an international standard.”

He disclosed that MOREACADEMY will offer tailor-made courses to real estate stakeholders.

“All mortgage service providers, including relevant staff of government housing corporations and those responsible for provision of affordable housing, including mortgage bankers are required to register with MORE MOREACADEMY for the annual, certification courses,”he said.

Answering questions on what could be done to bring interest rate down to a single digit, Prince Akinfolurin called on the Central Bank of Nigeria, CBN to put in place a policy that would compel banks to lend at not more than one percent of the inter bank rate. He stressed the need for a pressure group that would mount consist pressure on the sector so that interest rate can be forced down.

Also speaking at the launch, the Director-General of CMD, Dr. Kabir Kabo Usman said it is the responsibility of CMD to partner with reputable organisations who will add value to the realisation of the mandate of the agency.

Usman who stated that Nigeria requires 2.8 million housing units annually in the next six years to meet the estimated 16.8 million shortfall, declared that all hands must be on deck to bridge the housing gap. Decrying the absence of a viable mortgage sector in Nigeria, the CMD DG stressed the need to raise the capacity of Nigerians in the area of mortgage banking and its operations.

He enjoined the three tiers of government to create the enabling environment for individuals and corporate organisations to go into real estate. According to him, the use of mortgages to buy or build houses, will reduce corruption in the country because people will no longer buy houses on cash and carry basis but will systematically make monthly savings until the save enough to pay their mortgages.

The use of mortgages he said, will also help in the provision of decent shelter for the teeming homeless Nigerians. The CMD DG who described MOREACADEMY as a pilot scheme, explained that before arriving at the partnership with West Atlantic Corporation,CMD “properly scrutinized, synthesized and filtered the company.”