Review of Public Administration and Management

Abstract

Shelter for All: An Appraisal of Implementation of the National Housing Policy

Okafor Obiefuna

The housing conditions of Nigerians have progressively worsened over the last 10 years. Although the Federal Government launched a national housing policy in 1990, which supposedly require eight million new housing units by the year 2020 if all Nigerians were to have access to some decent accommodation at affordable cost. By that projection the country was expected to build 700,000 housing units annually from 1991 to the end of the century. But all these turned out to be a mirage. The actual number of houses built within the period added up to a small fraction of one million. Consequently the paper argues that the government policies portend further impoverishment and marginalization of the suffering masses, thereby consolidating the imperialist and capitalist hold over Nigeria’s socio-political economy such the paper contends, has serious or dangerous implications to National Development.