Adibe Emenyonu
Due to the growing concern over inadequate housing for the teeming Nigeria population, a private initiative, Bestan Group, has indicated its willingness to build one million houses to make up for the nation’s housing deficit.
The Managing Director, Bestan Group, Dr. Becky Olubukola, in collaboration with another private interest, Distance Home, dropped the hint in Benin City, Edo State in an interaction with newsmen, recently.
Dr. Becky, who said the one million housing project would run for 22 years, added that the nation’s population is increasing by the day and tackling its housing deficit, required collective efforts just like what her group through and the Metal Shelter Home is doing at the moment.
“That is why for us in Bestan Homes, we are organising the National House Fares. Because of our passion for the people and for the nation, we came up with a concept that can directly solve the deficits in housing, called the Metal Shelter Initiative.
“The Metal Shelter Initiative, it is an initiative by Bestan Home to solve the housing problem in this nation by providing a million houses every year for the next 22 years.
“We hope that before we do a million houses every year, we have been able to reduce the housing deficits because it is about action.
“It is not what we can reduce by mere talk, it requires action by involving government through Public Private Partnership (PPP).
“That is the solution. We need to work together with the government, harness our knowledge with the government capacity to reduce the deficits.
“The deficits are not magic that will fly off one day, it requires a lot of work and time because it didn’t build up in one year, it built up in the last 60 years of this nation’s existence.
“So, we are saying let us see what we can do as an organisation, we are saying we want to build a million houses but with the help of other organizations coming in, imagine a company building a million houses every year, imagine other organizations building a million houses every year, it means that we can actually shrink this 22 years to 10 or less in a year”, she said.
She also noted that though achieving the one million houses would not be easy as that but that with the help of technology, the feat is doable and achievable.
According to her, “Building one million houses is not easy, that is why we are introducing a technology that can manufacture homes and not build homes. So, we are transiting from building homes to manufacturing of homes.”
The Bestan Group’s managing director added that the organisation which started some years ago was borne out of the need to bridge the gap between the government, people and the mortgage houses by ensuring that everybody has the essential and needed information to have an affordable home.
