Vice President Yemi Osinbajo has charged the nation’s financial market dealers to collaborate with government with concerted efforts to tackling Nigeria’s housing problem adding that this will see to develop a housing blueprints for the nation’s teeming population.

Osinbajo made this known at the State House, Abuja, when he played host to a delegation from the Financial Market Dealers Quotation (FMDQ) which is Africa’s first vertically integrated financial market infrastructure (FMI) group, strategically positioned to provide registration, listing, and quotation services, and is owned by the Central Bank and commercial banks in Nigeria.

He tasked the experts to develop an appropriate housing scheme model which will significantly transform the housing sector on a large scale and close the housing deficit gap in the country. He stated that economic experts had put housing deficit in Nigeria at around 8-22 million units, while the ratio of mortgage finance to GDP in the country is only 0.5 per cent, 31 per cent in South Africa, and two per cent in Ghana and Botswana.

Speaking after listening to a presentation by the FMDQ delegation, Osinbajo said “I like the point you made about the National Housing Blueprint. I very strongly believe that if we are able to unlock the conundrum in the sector, we can get things working.”

According to him, “in our ESP, we have something on social housing but one of the critical issues there is how to market these houses, how we are able to provide the finance so that people can afford to buy them. These are houses that are in the order of about N2 million or N2.5 million.

But there are still constraints on account of the fact that we just do not have anything like a feasible housing finance model, I think it is time for us to do so. It just looks like it has always escaped our capacity to find a real solution to the problem.”

Speaking on the possibility of having a model that will work, Osinbajo noted that “everyone recognizes that we are in very challenging times. But I agree with you that the sheer range and vastness of our potentials make it seem almost intuitive that we are bound to succeed.

I have no doubt in my mind whatsoever, that given the right mix of policy initiatives, we can get these things done. And your characterization of what needs to be done like attracting capital and sustaining it is so important because ultimately, capital will go where it is best treated.

Earlier in his remarks, CEO FMDQ, Mr Bola Onadele said the visit was to inform the Vice President about the transformation taking place in the FMDQ and the need for government support in growing the financial market for the benefit of Nigerians and the economy.