Strategies for enabling private sector-driven affordable urban housing in Abuja Nigeria

Despite replacing the government’s direct provision of housing with an enabled
private-driven approach for over three decades, the housing deficit in Nigeria has continued to increase to a figure estimated to be between 17 million and 22 million units. Abuja, the Federal Capital of Nigeria alone accounts for 10% of this deficit despite the significant number of unoccupied houses in the city. This research investigated the reason behind this failure and proposed recommendations to address the issue. The data for this research was collected using multiple qualitative methods – phenomenology, case study, and workshop in a Generic Qualitative Inquiry (GQI) approach; thus, semi-structured interviews were administered in two stages to 13 participants comprising public and private stakeholders in the housing sector to characterise the problem and define the solutions. Structured questions were presented to another 18 participants for discussion in a workshop, and semi-structured interviews were administered.