(1) This Saturday, governorship elections are due and alas, the issue of housing is not a burning topic. I just shudder at how empty our politics is. Neither the APC or PDP has a coherent housing policy. Do you know that housing is primarily the responsibility of state governments and should have been the major debate over the last week?

(2) So far, the only governorship candidate across the 36 states who has mentioned housing in his campaign is Babatunde Gbadamosi, the Lagos State gubernatorial candidate of the Action Democratic Party. He has promised to build 10,000 affordable homes a year in Lagos. Nobody else appears interested in the matter

(3) Well, let me break the scale of the problem down for you my people. As we speak today, about 50% of Nigeria’s population of 180m live in urban areas. As we approach 2050 and are set to become the world’s third most populous nation, we are poised to become the ghetto capital of humanity. Squalor, disease, epidemics and environmental disaster awaits us unless we address this vexed issue of housing

(4) Growing up, we did not have this problem as back in the 70 and 80s, about 70% of our population lived in villages. Today, Nigeria’s population is crammed into cities like Lagos, Abuja, Ibadan, Port Harcourt, Benin, Kano, Kaduna, Jos, Aba, Maiduguri, etc. We are sitting on a ticking time bomb my people

(5) Let me give you statistics to back it up - Lagos (12m), Kano (3.6m) Ibadan (3.5m), Kaduna (1.5m), Port Harcourt (1.2m), Benin (1.12m), Maiduguri (1.12m). You simply cannot have cities with populations in excess of 1m and not have housing policies to accommodate the people

(6) During the Second Republic, Obafemi Awolowo had a policy called Stemming the Rural-Urban Migration. This involved locating government corporations and private businesses in the countryside so people did not need to rush to the cities in search of work. Today, nobody is even discussing this

(7) In Kaduna for instance, the problem has got so bad that the city is now segregated between Muslims and Christians. You are not even allowed to rent houses in a part of the city occupied by people of the other faith. Rather then address this matter, that so-called Governor El-Rufai has been fighting for a $350m World Bank loan. He has not told us what he wants to use the loan for and I keep asking myself, why is he not seeking a  $350m developmental grant to build affordable homes in Kaduna? Surely housing his people is more important than getting a loan, sharing the proceeds among his cronies and then indebting his state for the next 30 years

(8) In Kano, we actually might see some action as long as property developers approach the governor with proposals to build privately. If they agree to pay Ganduje his 30% cut of any development, I can see him agreeing to such investment, maybe under a PPP scheme. However, by the time they absorb that 30%, the contractors will have to cut corners, thus making the houses, sub-standard and dangerous. So if you hear of any collapsed houses in Kano, we all know who to blame

(9) In Ibadan, we have a unique problem as the city is one of undulating hills like San Francisco or Yaoundé. Housing has to take this into effect and also build facilities to serve hilltop estates. Are either of the Oyo State governorship candidates even discussing this at all? When you have a city of 3.5m people and housing and mass transit are not even discussed in an election campaign, are we not heading for Armageddon?

(10) One city that I would personally like to tackle though is Maiduguri. With half of the population of Borno State said to currently be living there, it is ripe for industrialisation. Maiduguri should be turned into a manufacturing workshop, Will all the surrounding countryside converted into farming plantations. Maiduguri should be the agro-processing capital of Nigeria. This means factories, housing estates, an urban metro, a mini power grid, etc.

My people are not debating these matters and they want good governance????? Hmmm. Do Nigerians deserve good governance.