It appears that evidently the Minister of State for Housing and City Improvement, Yusuf Atta, might have elevated mediocrity to an artwork type when he lately declared that his main official task is to recapture Kano State from the New Nigerian Peoples Occasion (NNPP) for the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC).
In making that ill-advised pronouncement, it’s open to conjecture that he both didn’t correctly learn his job schedule as outlined by President Bola Ahmed Tinubu or didn’t sufficiently perceive his function as a member of the federal government Council. It is also each, through which case the method of nominating and appointing him must be interrogated.
As a member of the ruling APC, Atta is true to precise his celebration’s want to clinch all elective positions, not simply in Kano however throughout the nation. However with elections over and the nation in a dire strait in all sectors, a member of the nation’s highest policy-making and implementation physique mustn’t impishly inform Nigerians that his main activity was recapturing a state for his celebration. It leaves a lot to be desired of an in any other case revered political chief appointed to a excessive public workplace.
By the way, Atta’s declaration follows President Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s directive that Ministers of state oversee companies inside their portfolios. This directive implies that Minister Atta is predicted to supervise companies just like the Federal Mortgage Financial institution of Nigeria, the Federal Housing Authority and the Workplace of the Surveyor Common of the Federation.
All these companies, and certainly, the ministry, are crucial to bridging the humongous housing deficit, conservatively put at a staggering 28 million, within the face of skyrocketing constructing supplies costs. Sadly, this large deficit has turn out to be certainly one of Nigeria’s defining options. But, as an alternative of being preoccupied with this pressing nationwide situation, Minister Atta is preoccupied with a whimsical mission to subvert the electoral course of in a warped bid to recapture Kano for the APC.
This newspaper wouldn’t have bothered if Atta had been a public official manning an inconsequential authorities workplace. However this can be a minister of one of the crucial sectors. Even so as of man’s precedence, shelter ranks third, after meals and clothes. Atta must be advised, in clear phrases, that the nation can not afford to play politics with housing.
Nonetheless, greater than anything, Atta’s declaration lend credence to the extensively held view amongst Nigerians that the latest cupboard reshuffle, which noticed President Tinubu sack 5 ministers and appoint seven new ones, was pushed primarily by political issues and never efficiency.
Though the housing sector performs a pivotal function within the financial fortunes of countries, it contributes lower than six per cent of Nigeria’s Gross Home Product (GDP), in response to 2024 knowledge from the Nationwide Bureau of Statistics (NBS).
In 2023, the federal authorities stated an estimated N21 trillion was wanted to bridge the nation’s housing deficit. Curiously, in 2024, we now have a Minister of Housing involved about his celebration regaining political management of Kano for his celebration as an alternative of rallying stakeholders to mobilise this appreciable useful resource want.
In a white paper titled ‘Bridging the Housing and City Improvement Divide’, the Nigerian Financial Summit Group advocated a public-private technique to drive environment friendly housing and concrete improvement.
The Group really helpful a sound nationwide housing plan and a strong coverage regulatory framework to handle the provision and demand-side points the housing ecosystem faces. It additionally harped on the necessity to ‘commoditise housing and industrialise the method; foster collaboration and partnership with sub-nationals and different stakeholders; develop the mortgage market and guarantee entry to land… and drive reforms on the sub-national stage’
A lot of the housing sector’s funding is made by personal sector gamers who’re disenchanted with excessive rates of interest, overseas alternate volatility, and a basic lull within the financial system. These components have turn out to be disincentives for funding on this crucial sector.
Now, greater than ever, is the time for the nation to deal with large funding within the housing sector by wooing personal sector gamers with tax holidays and beneficial rates of interest, amongst different incentives. This may assist bridge the nation’s housing deficit and contribute immensely to job creation. Slightly than working in the direction of formulating insurance policies that can assure this, Minister Atta is fascinated with mundane partisan issues irrelevant to common Nigerians who urgently want a roof over their head.
We enjoin Minister Atta to rally all of the crucial stakeholders and mobilise the wanted assets to contribute to bridging the nation’s housing deficit. He has another: He can honourably resign and get a spot at both the ruling APC’s nationwide headquarters or the celebration’s Kano state secretariat, the place he can work relentlessly in the direction of recapturing Kano for no matter fits his partisan fancy.
