Under the visionary leadership of Gbenga Ashafa, the Federal Housing Authority (FHA) has become a beacon of an effective ministry in Nigeria. The ministry has become more visible and has also given credit to the belief that Federal agencies are not like trees with roots everywhere sucking the nutrients of the land. No! With Ashafa at the head, FHA has begun to give back to the Nigerian people.
No individual should be able to effect a complete turnaround in the contributions of a ministry in Nigerian society. The institutional framework does not allow it. Yet, this is what Ashafa has accomplished. And without needing to sack every upper-level staff of FHA that was there before him.
Under Ashafa, FHA has become a flourishing entity. However, the measure of this success is the degree of innumerable contributions in the form of beneficial projects for every tier of the Nigerian society, from the grassroots at the bottom to the elites at the head. It is no secret now that what Ashafa intends to do is employ millions of Nigerians to build 300,000 affordable housing units all over Nigeria. This is one of the objectives of the National Housing Fund (NHF) scheme.
In the meantime, the State capitals are the main targets of FHA’s groundbreaking projects. The Federal Government has already opened its first estate in Lagos, the Silvercrest Oakwood Estate. The idea is to use this estate to test the waters and see how sustainable it is to hand out housing units with 3 to 4 bedrooms to beneficiaries of the NHF loan scheme. If this works, and the chances are that it will, the plan of giving out 300,000 units in a few years will be closer to implementation. Overall, Gbenga Ashafa is leading FHA to greater heights. And isn’t this what agency MDs are supposed to do?
