Nasarawa state government has said the provision of housing is a priority and it is ready to collaborate with investors to develop the state.
The deputy governor of the state, Dr Emmanuel Akabe said this when a delegation of the Federal Ministry of Works and Housing paid him a courtesy call on Monday in Lafia, Nasarawa State.
The visit was a fallout of the occasion of the commissioning of the Phase 1 of the National Housing Programme in Lafia.
Akabe said the government took housing as a priority because after good the next important thing to man was shelter.
According to him the government is willing and ready to provide land for the ministry to build on for its citizens because they want speedy development.
“Our state is blessed both on natural and human resources and we call on investors to come and join us in the building it for the benefit of the people.
“Recently the vice-president came to commission a housing project in Loco and we are collaborating with the Federal Mortgage Bank of Nigeria to build low income houses.
“We are therefore appreciative of the ministry for building these houses and also call on it to also help in building our roads especially the one leading to the airport.” Akabe said.
He was optimistic that the ministry’s intervention would go a long way in bridging the housing deficit in the state.
Earlier, the leader of the delegation from the ministry of works, the Director, Public Building and Housing, Mr Solomon Labafilo commended the state government for its support to the ministry on the housing programme.
According bro him Nasawara state is the first state to commision the housing programme out of the 34 states in the federation.
“We have tried as a ministry to ensure equality of states meaning that we want infrastructural development to cut across every part of the country but this has not been because some states find it difficult to donate unencumbered lands to the ministry to peruse this programme.
“The ministry is grateful to the Nasarawa state government because any time we cry to the state the government is always willing to give us land.
“I remember last year December some contractors were moved from plateau state to Nasarawa state because they did not have land for this programme .
“After today’s programme which is going to be phase 1 of the three phases that we have you could see that the federal secretariat is nearly completed, just like the housing programme all the states in the federal will have a secretariats,.
“The remaining 5 states that do not have it has been captured in the budget appropriation for 2022,” he said.
The director added that the programme was initiated in 2016 in 34 states and FCT with the purpose of bridging the housing deficit in Nigeria and so far the ministry had turned in over 6000 housing units of different housing types.
Source : Leadership
