Those Who Deserve Housing Are The Nigerian People, Not cockroaches and Lizards! ~ Omoyele Sowore

On the State of Housing Market in Nigeria, at the University of Lagos.

We would increase the minimum wage of an average Nigerian worker to One Hundred Thousand Naira, so that an average Nigerian worker could afford a loan of Two Million Naira in order to own a house.The Presidential candidate of the African Action Congress, AAC, Omoyele Sowore, has condemned the prevalent state of uninhabited houses overtaken by cockroaches and lizards while Nigeria suffers from a deficit of 17 million homes for it’s homeless population.

He made the rebuke while speaking at a Town hall meeting on Housing for Presidential candidates organized by the University of Lagos on Saturday, 12th of January, 2019.

Speaking at the event on the question as to if he will privatize government or public houses currently not in use, Sowore said:

“We will not give anymore of our public properties to private individuals. What we’re going to do is to take inventory of all the uninhabited public properties in Nigeria.

The ones that can be converted into hospitals will be converted into hospitals, the ones that can be converted into houses will be converted to houses and be given to workers, our federal workers.

“We would convert the federal government secretariat in Lagos  state to a public hospital. He added”

Blaming the housing crisis in Nigeria on failed leadership, he said:“The federal government of Nigeria is a wasteful government. If we do not reclaim this properties for the Nigerian people, it will end up in the hands of our ministers, governors, senators and other political leaders and thieves. The Nigerian property should be used by the Nigerian people and this is what we would do when elected”.Drawing parallels with Asian countries who rose from being third world countries to competing with European countries and the US and have overcome the housing problem, Sowore said:

“China planned ahead and built houses to the extent that they now have ghost apartments, Japan did it and so did Singapore and others.”

“So, do not vote in leaders who took off the roof over your heads, because they have no intention to build you houses for shelter” ~ the AAC Presidential candidate admonished.

“The chapter 2 of the 1999 Nigerian constitution suffers a major defect, because that particular chapter is ‘not justiciable’ in the court of law .”

“You cannot go to court to sue the Nigerian government for not having a home, that was why i said the 1999 constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria is a fraudulent document which was created by the military and imposed on us the Nigerian people.”~ Sowore quipped.

“The rich, the 1% of our population already have too much houses, so we are going to make sure that we take those houses with no one living in them from the owners.”
“Government must invest in shelter, and make sure that every Nigerian citizen must be entitled a place to lay his head at night, a home. We have to make this investment, and what we have proposed is that our government would invest $3.6 billion into housing, and i mean it, we would soon turn this country into a construction site.”“What we need to do is to make housing a right for our people living in the country.”“Every Nigerian family must have a home, over 80 million Nigerians are homeless, we would make sure that every family has a home, a father, a mother and at least 3 children.”The town hall meeting which was organised by the University of Lagos, on the state of the Nigerian Housing Market had four other political parties and their Presidential candidates apart from Mr. Omoyele Sowore of the African Action Congress, which includes Mrs. Obiageli Ezekwesili of ACPN, Prof. Kingsley Moghalu of YPP, Mr. Fela Durotoye of ANN, and Mr. Isaac Ositelu of AP.The event was well attended by a wide spectrum of people, students, rights activists, lecturers, public servants and government functionaries, businessmen, researchers and distinguish press persons.LIVE: Omoyele Sowore at the University of Lagos Housing Town Hall Meeting for Presidential Candidate