Agele Alufohai

rians – the rich, the poor, civil servants, small business people, artisans, informal sector workers and entrepreneurs, young graduates, young people with limited formal education, banks, construction companies etc. – will boost construction activities and make a significant contribution to economic development.”

The former president of the Nigeria Institute of Quantity Surveyors (NIQS) also noted that “because a house is the single biggest investment for an overwhelming majority of people will ever make in their lives, an efficient mortgage system is critical to proving accommodation for most Nigerians.”

Less than 3% of Nigerians acquire their homes through mortgages. Yet millions of Nigerians invest in building houses of different costs and quality without any help whatsoever from the government.

Alufohai proposed a modeling of Nigeria’s mortgage system after that of Singapore where its citizens obtain 20 to 30-year low interest mortgages to acquire houses through a pool of funds into which all workers must contribute 20% of their salary.

He said: “The clear solution to me is the Singapore model – creating a pool of funds into which everybody contributes monthly and from which everybody borrows to buy a flat or house. The Federal Government ‘tops up’ contributions into this remodeled National Housing Fund (NHF) with at least N10 billion every year and it’s perfectly alright if it spends every kobo on its intervention in housing on this.”

Singapore, the once poor island in Southeast Asia, evolved from a third to first world economy between 1965 (when it gained independence from the British) and 2000. Under Lee Kuan Yew, the