The Minister of Housing and Urban Development, Muttaqha Rabe Darma has revealed that since its inception fifty two years, Nigerian nation recorded more than 650 building collapses and over 1,600 deaths, saying that in most cases nobody was licensed and nobody was punished to serve as deterrent.

Speaking at the Stakeholders Workshop on Validation of the National Housing Data Programme Report and the Regulation of the Built Environment in the Housing. Sector in Abuja, Darma explained that almost every one of those buildings had a designer, a builder and an approving officer.

“Six million Nigerians contributed to the National Housing Fund of the Federal Mortgage Bank of Nigeria, which stood between N120 and N150 billion from them yearly and booked fewer than 500 mortgages. Our mortgage -to-GDP ratio is between 0.02 and 0.07 percent. South Africa is 30. Britain is 70. That is not poverty; that is bad plumbing.”

The Housing Minister argued that the National Housing and Built Environment Regulation Policy
displacement is essential, and a national data observatory, and proposed a National Housing Industry Regulatory Commission as well as reform the FMBN to open the NHF to traders, artisans and drivers with 5,000 naira a month.

“For twenty years, we’ve quarrelled over whether the deficit is 15 million. Our Technical Committee puts the core deficit at about 20 or 28 million units. The World Bank Adequate Housing Index and the UN-Habitat Household Crowding Index have theirs,too. No serious investor finances an argument,” he added.

Also speaking,the Permanent Secretary,Shuaib Belgore explained that they are seeking to establish a credible, reliable and sustainable national housing data ecosystem that will support evidence-based policymaking, improve planning, strengthen investment decisions and enhance the monitoring and evaluation of housing interventions across the country.

According to Belgore, the second is the Regulation of the Built Environment seeking to strengthen regulatory oversight, promote compliance with established standards, improve professionalism within the construction industry and address the persistent challenge of building collapse through coordinated institutional reforms.

“Nigeria’s housing sector has been challenged by fragmented data systems, inadequate coordination among institutions and weak regulatory enforcement. These limitations have constrained effective planning, reduced investor confidence and affected the overall quality, safety and sustainability of housing development nationwide.”

Belgore therefore maintained that following the increasing incidence of building collapse across the country, the Minister constituted a Ministerial Task Team to review the underlying causes and recommend comprehensive reforms aimed at strengthening the regulation of the built environment.

Similarly, he emphasized that the recommendations arising from that assignment, together with other ongoing regulatory initiatives of the Ministry, will form an important component of our deliberations during this stakeholders workshop.