A Minister’s Perception Of His Job

It seems that the Minister of State for Housing and Urban Development, Yusuf Atta, may have elevated mediocrity to an art form when he recently declared that his primary official assignment is to recapture Kano State from the New Nigerian Peoples Party (NNPP) for the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC).

In making that ill-advised pronouncement, it is open to conjecture that he either did not properly read his job schedule as defined by President Bola Ahmed Tinubu or did not sufficiently understand his role as a member of the federal executive Council. It could also be both, in which case the process of nominating and appointing him ought to be interrogated.

As a member of the ruling APC, Atta is right to express his party’s wish to clinch all elective positions, not just in Kano but across the country. But with elections over and the nation in a dire strait in all sectors, a member of the nation’s highest policy-making and implementation body should not impishly tell Nigerians that his primary task was recapturing a state for his party. It leaves much to be desired of an otherwise respected political leader appointed to a high public office.

Incidentally, Atta’s declaration follows President Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s directive that Ministers of state oversee agencies within their portfolios. This directive implies that Minister Atta is expected to oversee agencies like the Federal Mortgage Bank of Nigeria, the Federal Housing Authority and the Office of the Surveyor General of the Federation.

All these agencies, and indeed, the ministry, are critical to bridging the humongous housing deficit, conservatively put at a staggering 28 million, in the face of skyrocketing building materials prices. Unfortunately, this massive deficit has become one of Nigeria’s defining features. Yet, instead of being preoccupied with this urgent national issue, Minister Atta is preoccupied with a whimsical mission to subvert the electoral process in a warped bid to recapture Kano for the APC.

This newspaper would not have bothered if Atta had been a public official manning an inconsequential government office. But this is a minister of one of the most critical sectors. Even in order of man’s priority, shelter ranks third, after food and clothing. Atta should be told, in clear terms, that the nation cannot afford to play politics with housing.

Nonetheless, more than anything else, Atta’s declaration lend credence to the widely held view among Nigerians that the recent cabinet reshuffle, which saw President Tinubu sack five ministers and appoint seven new ones, was driven mainly by political considerations and not performance.

Although the housing sector plays a pivotal role in the economic fortunes of nations, it contributes less than six per cent of Nigeria’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP), according to 2024 data from the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS).

In 2023, the federal government said an estimated N21 trillion was needed to bridge the country’s housing deficit. Curiously, in 2024, we have a Minister of Housing concerned about his party regaining political control of Kano for his party instead of rallying stakeholders to mobilise this considerable resource need.

In a white paper titled ‘Bridging the Housing and Urban Development Divide’, the Nigerian Economic Summit Group advocated a public-private strategy to drive efficient housing and urban development.

The Group recommended a sound national housing plan and a robust policy regulatory framework to address the supply and demand-side issues the housing ecosystem faces. It also harped on the need to ‘commoditise housing and industrialise the process; foster collaboration and partnership with sub-nationals and other stakeholders; develop the mortgage market and ensure access to land… and drive reforms at the sub-national level’

Most of the housing sector’s investment is made by private sector players who are disenchanted with high interest rates, foreign exchange volatility, and a general lull in the economy. These factors have become disincentives for investment in this critical sector.

Now, more than ever, is the time for the nation to focus on massive investment in the housing sector by wooing private sector players with tax holidays and favourable interest rates, among other incentives. This will help bridge the nation’s housing deficit and contribute immensely to job creation. Rather than working towards formulating policies that will guarantee this, Minister Atta is fascinated with mundane partisan considerations irrelevant to average Nigerians who urgently need a roof over their head.

We enjoin Minister Atta to rally all the critical stakeholders and mobilise the needed resources to contribute to bridging the nation’s housing deficit. He has an alternative: He can honourably resign and get a place at either the ruling APC’s national headquarters or the party’s Kano state secretariat, where he can work relentlessly towards recapturing Kano for whatever suits his partisan fancy.