FG Inaugurates 14-man C’ttee on Housing Sector Reforms

Emmanuel Addeh in Abuja

The federal government has inaugurated a ministerial committee to drive the implementation of reforms aimed at transforming Nigeria’s housing and built environment sector.

The 14-member body was inaugurated in Abuja by the Minister of Housing and Urban Development, Muttaqa Darma, with a six-week deadline to produce a workable implementation strategy.

The committee, chaired by the Permanent Secretary of the ministry, Dr Shuaib Belgore, comprises officials drawn from the ministry’s technical departments and relevant agencies.

Its mandate includes coordinating implementation of the reform measures, developing a detailed work plan with priority actions, timelines and deliverables, and monitoring progress to ensure that assigned actions are completed within the approved timelines.

Speaking at the inauguration, Darma said the committee was the outcome of a stakeholder validation conference convened to review housing deficit data compiled by the ministry and establish policy directions for reforming the sector.

He said the recommendations from the conference had been divided into three categories: measures that could be implemented immediately by the ministry; those requiring approval from the Presidential Council; and those requiring legislative action.

According to him, the ministry’s responsibility is either to provide housing directly for Nigerians or create the conditions that enable citizens to provide housing for themselves.

Darma also called for stronger regulation of the built environment, arguing that the sector had significant room to increase its contribution to the Nigerian economy.

Citing 2025 data from the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS), he said the sector currently contributes about 17 per cent to Nigeria’s economy, compared with between 22 and 27 per cent in economies such as South Africa and Kenya.

He expressed confidence that appropriate reforms could enable Nigeria to close the gap and position housing and the broader built environment as a major driver of economic growth.

Darma urged the committee to approach the assignment with urgency, saying its members had been selected to lead the transformation of the sector. “We don’t know the word impossible, all we see is possibility,” he said, charging the committee to produce a robust implementation strategy within the six-week timeframe.