BusinessDay 07 Nov 2017

26 BUSINESS DAY
C002D5556 Tuesday 07 November 2017
HOMES&PROPERTY
Research institute faults 17m
housing deficit on back of
population shift
For over a decade
now, Nigeria and
stakeholders in the
housing sector have been
estimating the country’s
housing deficit at 17 million
units. But the Nigerian
building and roads
research institute (NBRRI)
has faulted this figure, saying
it is no longer tenable.
The research institute
contends that the population
of the country has
shifted. Quoting findings
by Worldometer, 2017, the
institute notes that from
2012 to date, Nigeria’s population
has increased from
168,240,403 to 191,835,936,
representing 23,595,533
additional people to the
population.
“The housing deficiency
has, therefore, climbed
and is likely to worsen in
the nearest future if urgent
steps are not taken by the
government in conjunction
with all stakeholders to
address the problem”, said
Danladi Matawal, DG/CEO
of the institute at a housing
conference in Abuja.
Matawal noted that almost
every dispensation
since the colonial era has
formulated policies to contain
the housing situations,
but while some yielded
success, some have failed
to make any significant
impact in the housing and
real estate sector or the
country.
The World Bank in 2013
stated that in order for
Nigeria to keep up with
the demand for housing,
700,000 houses need to
be developed annually to
match growing population
and urban migration, but
less than 100,000 houses
are being built in the country
on yearly basis.
The director general,
therefore, canvassed a paradigm
shift in approach to
providing housing in Nigeria
from a conventional
process-based approach to
more compartmentalised
Economy loses as govt,
concessionaire bicker over Enugu
Stories CHUKA UROKO
Real estate czar, Njie, named African Entrepreneur
Real estate investment and
development giant, Mustapha
Njie, emerged tops as African
Entrepreneur at a highly sophisticated
and elite award ceremony
organised in Lagos at the weekend
by All Africa Business Leaders
Awards (AABLA) in collaboration
with CNBC Africa.
Njie, a Gambian national and the
CEO, Taf Africa Homes, was selected
from a nominee-list of other African
entrepreneurs and business leaders,
including Nigeria’s Cosmas Maduka,
the MD/CEO of Coscharis Motors
Limited.
The annual AABLA award sets
to honour business excellence and
leaders who have made considerable
impact on their industry and
the community. Alexander Leibner
of AABLA said the event marked
the start of what is set to be another
memorable AABLA season, honour-
and adaptable strategies.
Reasons for poor housing
situation in Nigeria,
he said, include access to
finance, legal processes
surrounding property and
land procurement, access
to affordable high quality
building materials as building
in Nigeria is relatively
expensive which, in turn,
reflects on high cost paid
by end users.
“Conscious and timely
efforts are required to
adopt strategies that will
significantly reduce the
cost of building houses and
I recommend the provision
of affordable housing by
harnessing and integrating
alternative building
technologies and building
materials to reduce the
cost of building houses in
Nigeria”, he said.
Continuing, he said,
“building houses are highly
capital intensive projects
and a bulk of this capital
is gulped up in procuring
building materials which
alone have been estimated
to constitute 60 percent of
the cost of constructing a
building”.
According to him, besides
the cost implications
of undertaking high volumes
of construction projects,
there is also the sustainability
issue, hence the
need to consider alternative
building materials and
technologies that would
be substitutes or complimentary
to conventional
building materials.
He listed conventional
building materials as concrete,
steel, glass, timber,
etc which take a lot of time
to produce and assemble
and may pose a time
challenge. These could be
replaced with basic alternative
materials which are
predominantly traditional
such as thatch, mud/clay,
laterite, gravel, straw, azara
and raffia palm that have
been in local production
from historic times.
ing business excellence across the
continent.
He said that this award celebrates
individuals who exemplify the best in
African leadership as well as African
business leaders who epitomize the
core values of a successful leader,
strength, innovation, ingenuity,
knowledge and foresight.
Reacting to his recognition, Njie
said, “I feel honoured and dignified
that all we have been doing over the
years is recognized; it gives me great
joy and I dedicate this award to all
my staff, family, friends and business
partners who have supported
us all the way. It is a challenge for us
to do more”.
Taf Africa Homes is an ambitious
developer with presence in eight
African countries including Nigeria,
Cameroon, Rwanda, Togo, Senegal,
Cote D’voire and Gambia. Its largest
developments so far are the
The economy of
Enugu State is
the ultimate loser
as the government
of the state
and the concessionaire on
the Enugu Hotel Presidential
bicker over the ownership
of that facility which
used to be an economic and
cultural monument in the
Coal City state.
This facility, which was
the pride of the entire Eastern
Region as a hospitality
and cultural gravitational
centre, has all the potential
for revenue earning
that could help to grow the
economy of the state if its
affairs are well managed
and put to immediate economic
use.
In its bid to resuscitate
this moribund facility,
the state government, in
2013, concessioned it to
Primeview Hotels Limited
(PHL) and by virtue of the
Joint Venture Agreement
signed between the management
of the hotel, E.
Hospitality Services Limited
and PHL coupled with the
Deed of Assignment dated
February 6, 2014 between
Hotel Presidential Limited
and PHL, the legal title on
the property was vested on
PHL for 35 years, beginning
from October 1, 2013.
But, since then, the concessionaire
has been having
challenges in its efforts
at redeveloping the hotel
which has suffered long
period of neglect and infrastructure
decay. Besides
funding challenges, the
concessionaire has also had
to contend with litigation by
a claimant to the ownership
of the hotel.
A statement by the management
of PHL obtained
by BusinessDay at the week-
end, alleges an attempt at
forceful takeover of the hotel
by people it further alleges
to be agents of Enugu State
government.
“Recently, a group of
armed soldiers, policemen
and Civil Defence Corps/
Legionnaires forced their
way into the Hotel Presidential,
Enugu, manhandled
our security personnel and
attempted to take over the
property”, the statement alleged,
adding, “since they
presented no letter authorising
them to take that action
or a valid court order, our
security personnel naturally
resisted but had to back
down when their lives were
threatened”.
The invaders, according
to the statement, claimed
to have been instructed to
“take over the hotel” by an
official of the Enugu State
government who later came
to the site in company of
some other persons who, it
was learnt, were “prospective
investors” and declared
she was discharging “government
directive”.
RivTaf Golf Estate in Port Harcourt,
Nigeria and The Brufut Garden in
The Gambia.
“We are very active in Nigeria
because the housing deficit here is
about 17 million. We have been here
for a long time and we are finding it
hard to get out the country. We have
projects already in three states of the
country”, Njie disclosed.
Continuing, he said, “our ambition
is to deliver one million housing
units in the next 20 years. And in doing
this, we want to make houses affordable
to the people and we are doing
it region by region and country by
country. Right now, we are registered
in eight African countries including
Nigeria, Cameroon, Rwanda, Togo,
Senegal, Cote D’voire and Gambia”.
RivTaf Golf Estate, a joint venture
project between the Taf Nigeria
Homes and the Rivers State government,
is an ambitious project that
“PHL has been in uninterrupted
possession of the
property since 2013 and has
carried out extensive work
onsite and offsite with a view
to redeveloping and transforming
the hotel to a world
class hospitality facility; unfortunately,
we have experienced
a number of setbacks the
latest of which is a pending
law suit by an entity which
claimed to have had previous
interest in the property.
“To the extent that PHL
were joined as co-defendants
in the suit together with
the officials of the Enugu
State government, we advised
the government to resolve
the matter as the facts
relating to the dispute arose
prior to our engagement”, the
statement recalled.
It recalled too that, since
2015, PHL has met with the
government team including
the governor, his deputy,
members of the State Privatisation
Council and the
Commissioner of Culture
and Tourism and has kept
them apprised of its challenges
and suggested ways
has delivered 750 housing units in its
first phase. The second phase which
has a 9-hole Golf Course Resort and
a natural lake, promises about 250
affordable housing units targeted at
middle-class home buyers.
in which they could move
forward.
“At the last of such meetings
held in June this year,
it was agreed that efforts
would be made to reach out
to Status Symbol Limited,
the litigant in the aforesaid
suit, with a view to arriving
at an amicable resolution
so that we could all move
forward without further hindrance”,
the company said.
PHL has continued to
work with its consultants
to fine tune plans for the
redevelopment of the Hotel,
including making funding
arrangements which have
altered significantly given
the foreign exchange situation
and level of inflation in
the country.
“This new development
is, therefore, a rude shock
and disappointment that the
state government has decided,
against good reason and
disregard for the provisions
of a legally binding agreement,
taken matters this far
with the attempted violent
takeover of the Hotel from
us”, the company posited.
L-R: Bismarck Rewane, CEO, Financial Derivatives Company; Mustapha Njie, CEO, Taf Africa
Homes and his business partner at the award ceremony in Lagos at the weekend.
The Brufut Garden in The Gambia
is a 650-housing-unit estate
located in the heart of Banjul, the
country’s federal capital. The estate
has a sizeable number of housing
units sold to Nigerian investors.