No fewer than 7,315 Nigerians are contesting to benefit from 5,000 national housing units in the ongoing National Housing Programme by the Ministry of Works and Housing.
Mr. Babatunde Fashola, the supervising minister of the ministry disclosed this when he appeared before the Senate Committee on Housing.
This means the number of applications is higher than the available housing units by 2,315, and according to the minister, this happened just a week after the launch of the programme.
Fashola appeared before the Senate on Thursday to brief the lawmakers about the housing programme, launched last Friday in Abuja.
Fashola said, “Out of the over 7,315 applications received from Nigerians as of noon on Thursday, 7,216 were pending, while 99 had been submitted successfully.
“While 24 applications had been submitted from the Federal Capital Territory, no single application had been received from about 20 states.”
Fashola said certain requirements were required to be met for Nigerians to qualify for allocation of the houses.
He listed the requirements for eligibility to include provision of a current tax clearance, payment slip, and means of identification.
Speaking on the project, the minister had earlier launched the online portal through which Nigerians can apply for the national housing units.
Accoriding to him, “This is will help to implement the economic purpose and blueprint because by the time we are done with this idea, the country will not have problem with the recession and that objective will be fulfilled.
“We have five phases of these projects. We have done with phase 1, and phase 2. We will soon be done with phase 3, and I emphasise that this will be the only solution to market these houses.
“We have different types of contractors. First, medium size which is the businesses owned by Nigerians and there will also be international businesses that will involve Nigerians abroad.
“So, this will give them the opportunity not only to contribute to the sustainable development of the country, but also to their staff”.
