The Minister of Housing and Urban Development, Muttaqa Darma, has inaugurated a 14-member committee to implement stakeholder recommendations on housing sector reforms, giving it six weeks to develop a strategy for transforming Nigeria’s built environment.
Darma said the committee was expected to ensure that the housing sector contributed significantly to the country’s economic development, while also creating an enabling environment for Nigerians to provide housing for themselves.
Speaking at the inauguration of the committee, which was held on Thursday in Abuja, the minister said the government had a responsibility to house Nigerians and regulate the built environment to maximise its contribution to the national economy.
He said, “First of all, we have the task of housing Nigerians. If we can’t house them, we have the task of providing the enabling environment for them to house themselves. We must do it. It is our responsibility, and we are very responsible people.”
Darma also stressed the need for stronger regulation of the built environment, noting that the sector had significant potential to contribute to the nation’s Gross Domestic Product. He said, “We also have the task of ensuring that the built environment is very much regulated so that it will contribute to the national economy. The 2025 data released by the Nigerian Bureau of Statistics indicated that this sector provided more than 70% of the contribution to the national economy.
In other countries, some of them developing countries like ours, for example, South Africa, even in smaller countries like Kenya, this same sector that contributed more than 70% contributed between 22 to 27% of the GDPs of countries similar to ours.”
The minister expressed optimism that the reforms would enable the industry to play a greater role in the development of the Nigerian economy. He said, “We shall be able to steer this industry to contribute significantly to the development of the economy of this country.
“It is therefore important for members of this committee, who have been carefully selected to drive the transformation process of this industry, to work to ensure that at the end of each hour our dream comes to pass. We have a dream of making this industry the greatest industry to the contributor of the economy in this country.”
Darma urged members of the committee to remain committed to the assignment, assuring them that the ministry would pursue the reforms despite the challenges.
He said, “And we are going to do it. We will not relent in doing it. We don’t know the word impossible. All we see is possibility. And I am sure members of the implementation committee, who will be given just a month and a half to submit reports, will work day and night to please come up with an implementation strategy to make sure that we transform the entire built environment industry.”
