Nigeria’s Empty Houses -By Kene Obiezu

It embarrasses the Nigerian government to admit but a housing crisis rages and holds within itself a lacerating metaphor for the country`s existential crises.This crisis is one that is very much in the open with large families cramped into squalid accommodations and the quality of life taking daily hits in a coruscating testimony to a crisis of human dignity.

Nigeria`s population is a large one. It is estimated at over two hundred million and the population explosion is showing no signs of slowing down. The country`s birth rate is high and continues to climb in spite of its constantly soaring death rate which is the result of plummeting life expectancy, fueled mostly by insecurity. The level of development has not been commensurate with the population explosion. The result is that the country has witnessed a rapid growth in population without an equally rapid expansion of the resources needed to ensure that the quality of life does not continue to take a steep decline.

These have resulted in a fierce competition for available resources and it is stating the obvious to say that housing is one of those areas where the competition is fiercest. In every Nigerian city, there are high-brow areas where accommodation can be afforded only by the high and mighty. Then there are those far-flung areas where the rest have to compete for every available quarter.

The country`s capital Abuja is a witness to the ugly spectre of lavish high-rise buildings which dot the city  but are unoccupied because they are painfully out of the financial reach of many Nigerians.

So, the cycle continues and landlords do not miss out on any opportunity to take part in the circus. They constitute themselves into demigods and treat their tenants as shabbily as they deem fit, especially in the mega cities where accommodation is a premium and the law conveniently looks away.

Those who cannot afford decent accommodation elsewhere sometimes find their way to land where they simply cannot understand the restrictions in place. They duly go to build and live until government which has failed to provide adequate housing sends its trucks to destroy and demolish.

That many Nigerians cannot afford a decent roof over their heads betrays as mostly empty every government commitment to adequate housing since independence. That families and children are crammed into shanties and slums put a lie to every government pledge to improve the housing conditions of Nigerians.

Nigeria`s housing crisis wags a leprous finger at Nigeria` s existential crisis. At over sixty years of existence, the country is yet to know genuine progress. No sooner had the country got independence than it descended into a bloody internecine war which took all of three years. Since Nigeria emerged from that war, there has been no escaping the bloodletting that was the highlight of the war.

Now, all over the country, from the east to the west, from north to south, one does not need to strain the ear to hear the sounds of gunshots; one does not need to strain the eyes to spot the crimson hue of blood.

Like an earthquake, agitations rumble in the underbelly of the country. From the south-east to the Niger Delta to the south-west, there are those, including countless young people who believe that Nigeria is better apart than together. In the riotous recriminations of those who believe Nigeria should be broken up, the voices of those who believe the country should continue together are always and easily drowned out.

Thus, Nigeria has become a country of people who do not really want to live with each other, just like the towering houses that stand alongside shanties. Nigeria has become a country of neighbours who suspect each other. Nigeria has become a country where citizens have to look over their shoulders, all suspicious of one another.

While Nigerians of northern extraction think that Nigerians of southern extraction are the problem, Nigerians of southern extraction have no doubt that their counterparts from Northern Nigeria are holding the country back.

So, what we have is largely a system where the center cannot simply hold. Nigeria is going apart at the seams and the task of saving Nigeria is an urgent one. It is for all stakeholders to commit to the urgent task while casting aside age long bitterness and resentment.

Kene Obiezu,

keneobiezu@gmail.com