CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
1.1 BACKGROUND TO THE STUDY
Housing (Shelter) is unarguably one of the basic necessities of man. It used to be ranked second after food in the hierarchy of man’s needs but according to Ebie (2009) it is the first and most important of all rights. According to him, because of the importance attached to housing and coupled with the fact that housing in all its ramifications is more than mere shelter,then,execution of public sector housing embraces all social services and utilities that go to make a community or neighbourhood a livable environment, this is now a right in Nigeria.This position is reinforced by section 16(1)(d) of 1999 constitution under the Fundamental Objectives of State Policy which compels the Nigerian State “to provide suitable and adequate shelter for all citizens” Even though this provision is not actionable, it reinforces the call for public sector driven mass housing provision in Nigeria. Housing being a right entails that all strata of a society including the less privileged members of the society, the old, the disadvantaged, the wondering psychotics should own or have access to decent, safe and sanitary housing accommodation at affordable disposal prices or rental with secure tenure.
Unfortunately the reverse is the case as in spite of the policies, institutions and regulations which various Nigerian Governments have put in place since independence; there is still dearth of housing for low income segment. A recent study of housing situation in Nigeria put existing housing stock at 23 per 1000 inhabitant. Housing deficit is put at 15 million housing units (Mabogunje, 2007) while 12 trillion naira will be required to finance the deficit. This is about 4 times the annual budget of Nigeria (FHA, 2007). Housing is of supreme importance to man and one of the best indicators of a person’s standard of living and his place in society. However, at no point has it been adequately supplied either quantitatively or qualitatively (Jiboye 2009; Omoniyi&Jiboye, 2011). Over time, the need for adequate shelter has continued to attract global attention especially in developing countries where the urbanization process has been growing at an alarming rate. The phenomenal rise in population, increase in number and size of most cities in the past decades have led to acute shortage of adequate dwelling units in many urban centres globally (Jiboye, 2009).
