The Federal Mortgage Bank of Nigeria (FMBN) says it has completed and is set to inaugurate 1,071 completed houses in eight project sites nationwide.
The completed houses are in Akure, Ondo state; Yola, Adamawa state; Katsina, Abakiliki, Ebonyi state; Damaturu, Yobe state; Sokoto, Maiduguri, Borno; and Kogi state.
They are part of the over 3,560 homes under phases one and two of the national affordable housing delivery programme.
It said the housing scheme is a collaborative effort between the bank and the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC), Trade Union Congress (TUC), and the Nigeria Employers’ Consultative Association (NECA).
In a statement signed by Timan Elayo, group head, corporate communications, the FMBN said the programme aims to build and deliver decent, safe, and quality housing for Nigerian workers at a price that they can afford and that the house types are based on proven social housing models and comprise one-bedroom, two-bedroom, and three-bedroom units, with prices ranging from N3.1 million to N8.3 million.
It said the commissioning exercise will hold simultaneously in the eight states on Thursday.
FMBN noted that the joint implementation committee (JIC) of the programme, comprising NLC, TUC, and NECA, approved the commissioning exercise at its meeting at the bank’s headquarters in Abuja.
The statement quoted the bank’s managing director, Hamman Madu, to have expressed joy at the completion of the first batch of the housing units, while applauding the labour centres for their cooperation and support.
“We are excited at the progress that we have made on the national affordable housing delivery programme. Indeed, it is a historic initiative as it marks the first time that FMBN and the organised labour and NECA are working together on the basis of a realistic and acceptable framework for delivering affordable housing to Nigerian workers,” Madu said.
He added that the stakeholders’ involvement and contributions to the project design make the scheme a fit-for-purpose tool that will deliver houses that workers can afford.
This, Madu said, is part of the overall national efforts toward redressing the huge housing deficit that experts now estimate to be over 22 million housing units.
