Affordable housing , my dream says Jeje, the Commissioner for Housing, Lagos State

The newly appointed Commissioner for Housing, Lagos State, Mr. Bosun Jeje, has pledged to make affordable housing the hallmark of his stint in power, even as he promised to resolve some of the lingering controversies in the ministry.

According to him, the availability of affordable housing units is a common issue in all mega cities with Lagos not being an exception.


The commissioner said, at an interactive session with journalists in his office on Friday, that the growing population of the state, majority of whom have no houses of their own, deserved to have roofs over their heads.

To achieve the affordable home dream, Jeje said the ministry would look at significantly reducing the cost of housing construction by utilising locally sourced raw materials.

He also said the home ownership mortgage scheme being floated by the state government would soon commence, noting that the availability of a strong mortgage finance mechanism was essential to realising the affordable home ownership dream.

The scheme, according to him, has been designed to provide long term mortgages for all categories of people in the state at an interest rate not exceeding six per cent and with fairly long amortisation period.

He urged residents of the state to form cooperative societies with a view to saving for home ownership, noting that they could raise the equity contribution for the houses to be bought from such societies, while the balance would be spread over some years.

Jeje, who unveiled his blueprint for housing development in the state at the session, said the state government would build a lot of housing units to satisfy the needs of the people.

Although he said it would take about four or five years to complete housing projects using the conventional building systems, the commissioner said the ministry would embrace new technologies and methodologies of housing construction in order to shorten the delivery time and produce more quality units at reduced prices.

He also said the ministry would embrace the Public-Private Partnership model for the construction of more houses.

“The motivation for housing development in the private sector is profit, while in the public sector; housing provision is regarded as a social service. We will marry the two and use whatever we make as profit on houses in prime areas to subsidise the prices of the low-income houses,” he said.

On the expected takeoff of the state’s mortgage scheme, Jeje said over 700 housing units were available for members of the public to purchase on mortgage, noting that contrary to insinuations, the state had no abandoned housing projects but many ongoing ones.

The commissioner said the government was opening new satellite towns to accommodate fresh developments and relieve the metropolis of congestion.

Some of the new towns, according to him, are located in Iba, Ojo area; Ajara in Badagry; Odoragunshin in Epe and some several schemes in the Ikorodu area.

Jeje said the ministry would also encourage multi-storey buildings that consist of different dwelling units in order to fully maximise the available land space, but noted that provisions would be made for old people.