HISTORICAL DEVELOPMENTS
4.2 Urban Housing Problems in Nigeria
4.2.2 Estimating housing/target policies
1960. An indeterminate population increase is a political weapon for national resource allocation and a persistent wrong planning document (Amuwo, 2009).
-To provide opportunity for improved housing for those whose income can afford it. (The target social focus group called the middle-income cannot afford housing provided by government based on real cost of housing and government wages (Mabogunje, 2007). The cost ceiling for houses, not exceeding N5million, repayment, and assumed salary scale based on federal government workers grade level 10-12 remain unrealistic).
Therefore, to quantify housing need and the economic realities it poses is a subject of debate to the Nigeria public and private sector; the method of estimating quantity, remains another quagmire for housing development experts as there seem to be inconsistencies in the approach as well as base data. Table 4.1 gives a general overview of quantitative methods for estimating housing in post-colonial Nigeria. Housing from policy standpoint in Nigeria is more of political oratory and a number game rather than a concerted effort to solving the housing problem.
The following is a list of Methods for quantitative estimating of urban housing need, demand, and supply in Nigeria.
Table 4.1 List of Quantitative methods used in Nigeria for HDS
s/n Quantitative Methods used(Post- colonial ;1960-date)
Description References Remarks
1 N(t)=H(t)+R(t) Where N is housing stock,H is housing requirement due to population increase (t)
Agunbiade,19
83 Basis; deductions of population increase 2 D=K(p/hs) Where D is estaimate ofhousing
requirement,
Population is (p), average household size is (hs) and (K) is number of households per single dwelling unit
World
Bank,1993 Basis; UN measures 8-10 units of housing per 1000 population
3 H=∑ (1/2PM + 3/4PWD +10%PU
Where H is number of housing units required, PM is half of sum of married persons,PWD is thre-quarters of widowed/divorced and PU is
unmarried between 25-26years of age.
Sonnabend
Method Basis;overall population
4 A=P/H Where A is average household size,P is population and H is the number of occupied dwellings
In Gyuse,
1984 Basis Average household size method(AHS)
Source:Author’s compilation from Gyuse 1984.
These methods described above may be misleading since they are all data dependent for any level of accuracy to be achieved. Estimates of population, size of households remain very difficult due to national political problems associated with resource control, revenue
mobilization and distribution based on population as well as social ties among households (Gyuse, 1984; Onibokun, 1975; 1986, Aradeon, 1991; Amuwo, 2009).
The methodological approach described in chapter two provides the required evaluation technique for establishing baseline, and extrapolating the quantitative data for use by housing development actors/partners and experts alike. However, Gyuse(1984) upholds that there is no comprehensive officially accepted estimate of the size and distribution of existing housing stock and base data for proposed planned programmes; and where they are available they suffer from problems of inaccuracy. There was an estimated attempt by Doxiades Associates and Planning Research Company (PRC, Nig), who were consultants to the Federal government on housing in 1973 and 1980 respectively. This contribution with its flaws formed the basis for national policy implementation. Both consultants comprises of professionals and academics, which this research describes as housing development experts. Their solutions alone formed the basis for implementation and the outcome thirty years later is no different from the basic problems enumerated in this research. Doxiades Associates and Planning Research Company established criteria for a broad based ‘estimating’ by defining the ‘housing need’, the ‘dwelling type’ and the ‘household’ as follows:
- The ‘housing need’ was defined quantitatively; by the number of dwelling units that are of required standard (again ‘standard’ becomes an issue as earlier defined and it is discussed elsewhere in this study).
-The ‘dwelling type’ was defined as the portion of the building and services occupied by a household (this captured the socio-cultural implication in housing arrangements among Nigerian households for the first time).
-The ‘household’ was defined as a group of individuals acting together (as a nuclear family or a group of friends; this also captures the essence of national socio-cultural arrangements).
This was the first attempt by ‘housing experts’ to consider criteria’s for estimating which have bearings on the ‘dwelling type’ as well as the ‘household’ in terms of the nuclear and extended families and friends as it is likely to occur in reality (Gyuse,1984).
From the foregoing, estimating data and the base data from which housing estimating for planned programmes emanated as well as the accuracy of such base data is very necessary for any research irrespective of the approach paradigm (Awotono, 1988; Gyuse, 1984). While, this study cannot boast of perfection, this research approach took into cognizance the diversity and the complexity of the population of study within the urban context due to the prevailing
problems and issues highlighted as above and made these evident in the research variables it sort to address in the questionnaires. The aim was to establish the quality of households’
variableness and the influences of the overall outcome of households’ demand profile. The study took into cognizance the variability in dwelling arrangements by its delineation of stakeholders in terms of households, actors/partners and experts from which different questionnaires addressed pertinent housing related issues.
Hence, this research in its definition of household includes all who actively lives in a single dwelling unit, which is primarily the nuclear family, extended families and friends, as this truly is representative of the household in Nigeria and particularly in Lagos. Since housing in Lagos often serves an implicit national function, it is a concourse for the locals, and the Diasporas.
Lagos is the main regional hub for commerce, and a national entry and exit point for most people who travel by air (or otherwise) internationally. This type of housing arrangement may be transient or permanent but based on the relationship with the household, as a family, extended family, or friend. It is common practice that such coalitions are basic to inherent tradition and it is a cultural lifestyle (Aradeon, 1978, 1991).
Therefore, in the estimating of housing stock quantity, three concepts where implicit by the PRC methodology: affordability, level of services and spatial variables. The PRC report by this moved the estimating of the quantitative aspects of housing forward in two significant ways, by assembling all available data and using a base data and by utilizing major physical and cultural constraints of urban housing development (Gyuse, 1984).
This research uses the quantitative data as an absolute figure to derive the socio-cultural realities of households, actors/partners, and experts within a given HDS.
4.2.2.2 Qualitative aspect of the urban housing problem
Gyuse (1984) identifies sanitation, infrastructural services, condition of housing stock, (as it pertains to structural soundness) location of housing, and occupancy (as it pertains to crowding). He identified five specific references to quality of the housing stock as it pertains to the data, scope, and gaps in the picture of the prevailing conditions of urban housing; that available literature depends on published government sources, and there is no new data after 1978. As at 2010, the baseline reference is still the unobtainable. More so, that there are basic discrepancies in housing estimating methodology; while available data sources serve purposes other than clarity in the research direction, and the information on housing conditions is generalized from a small sample of settlements by researchers. For instance, available data on
occupancy does not imply a notion of standards. Since, there are no generally accepted standards for housing in Nigeria (Mabogunje, 1978); it was only in 2007, that the National building Code was passed into law since 1960 independence. Although the document is a replica of the British standards, in many instances its definitions and exclusion of relevant socio-cultural aspects of housing is typical of the general approach to standards. Adequacy is often associated with number of rooms provided for households based on estimated family size. This excludes households’ functions, which are transitory and spatial concepts that are omnibus in use. Gyuse (1984), points out that the number of persons per room is less meaningful especially in the Nigerian context, if measured against a backdrop of cultural responses to space and our use of outdoor spaces in conjunction with enclosed spaces. For instances, while western cultures consider corridors as circulation, the traditional owner- occupier in Lagos considers it as a domestic space. Aradeon (1978) observes that, such divergence in meaning reflects a generalization in the condition of urban housing in Nigeria.
There have been several calls on the need for a fresh survey of housing conditions in Nigeria.
There was a comprehensive survey for Lagos state by the then Governor Tinubu administration (1999-2007). The results were only available in defense of Lagos population against Federal government data for resource distribution. The basis and methodology remain a secret, as it has become a weapon against political opponents and for justification of expenditure and resource allocation.