‘Demolition worsens Nigeria’s housing crisis amid 28m units deficit’
*Abia govt to convert recovered school properties to public use
A research development and advocacy organisation, Hipcity Innovation Centre, has decried the demolition of houses in Nigeria, citing the country’s housing shortage of 28 million units.
The organisation argued that such actions would worsen the existing housing crisis, emphasising the need for alternative solutions to address the deficit.
Speaking in Abuja, yesterday, at the launch of a web-based demolition reporting tool, Executive Director of the Centre, Bassey Bassey, called on governments at federal and state levels to have a human face in their demolition exercise by offering support, safety nets and legal protection to displaced persons.
Bassey expressed concern that in most cases, low-income communities are often targeted for evictions and demolitions, rendering many families homeless, displaced, and children dropping out of school, leading many to destitution, loss of livelihood, properties and social ties further widening the social inequality gap in our society and denying many the right to housing, as enshrined in the sustainable development goals.
The Executive Director pointed out that the exercise was launched in partnership with the Heinrich Boell Foundation, adding that the reporting tool tracks evictions and demolitions across Nigeria, especially in the Federal Capital Territory (FCT).
He said that the tool will provide empirical data on the rationality for evictions and demolitions across Nigeria, the frequency, as well as the capture of citizens’ voices.
“These data will inform our engagement with the government and guide our policy recommendations to the government on issues of urban integration, urban governance, inclusive cities making, and so on”, he said.
MEANWHILE, the Abia State Tertiary Education Commissioner, Prof. Uche Eme Uche, has clarified that buildings erected on illegally acquired public school lands in the state, which are being recovered during the ongoing exercise in the state, would not be demolished but put into proper use.
She said: “This government is against destruction of property, especially when it is not on the way. What the Recovery Committee demolished last weekend at the Government College Umuahia were structures at the foundation level. The government will not demolish recovered buildings, but will put them to proper use because it would be wasteful to demolish those properties.”
Structures were discovered to have been built on illegally acquired lands in over 180 public schools across the state for which the government has commenced their recoveries.
The Commissioner, who explained this, yesterday, when the Information Commissioner, Okey Kanu, was addressing the journalists said that the committee, constituted to affect the recoveries/demolitions has swung into action, beginning with recovering lands belonging to the Government College Umuahia, which individuals illegally acquired and developed.
Kanu asserted that the state government will not back out from recovering all the lands illegally acquired by unscrupulous individuals in schools no matter the pushback from those who may have engaged in this selfish takeover of school lands in the State.”
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