ASSESSMENT OF VARIOUS HOUSING PROGRAMMES
Introduction
1.1 Background of the Study
Housing is one of the basic needs of life. The problem of supply in quantity is experienced in most developing economies like Akwa Ibom State(Ekop, 2006), the study area. This problem has been receiving attention by government and the private sector since the state was created in 1987. The problem is not peculiar to the state alone, it cut across the whole nation. It is against this background that the New National Housing Policy (NNHP) came into effect in Nigeria in 1991. The objectives of the NNHP were to encourage and promote active participation in housing delivery in all tiers of Government, strengthen housing institutions to be more responsive to demands, emphasize housing investments which satisfy basic needs and encourage greater participation by the private sector in housing development (Ekop, 2006). It was also to provide housing for all Nigerians by the Year 2010. Roles were specified for the three tiers of government, federal, state and local, the apex and primary mortgage institutions and the various governmental agencies responsible for housing supply in order to achieve the overall national policy (FGN, 1991). The performances of the three tiers of government, their agencies, are among the issues to be examined in this study.
Since Nigeria attained independence in 1960, the provision of housing has become a paramount corner stone of the policies of variable government at the Federal and State level (Onibokun, 1985). These are manifested in the various National Development plans of the successive Federal Government, the high population of Nigeria with an estimated annual growth rate of 3% has further created stress in the housing demand of its citizenry (Ozo, 1987). Government has consistently fallen short of the demand inspite of the conscious effort by both private and public sector to make for the provision of housing. Housing programs in Nigeria has really suffered in the past decades, although several attempt has been made by the government to solve housing problems but it still prove abortive. The slogan aimed at providing housing for all by the year 2000AD has become in effected in the Nigerian context.