Niger State government in Nigeria is set to construct 1,000 additional housing units before the end of February; this comes after conclusion of arrangements for the projects. The Certificate of Occupancy for the land on which the houses will be constructed has already been signed by the State Governor Babangida Aliyu.
The US$60.61m housing project will kick off in Maikunkele, in the outskirts of Minna metropolis and Suleja in the Suleja Local Government area of the state, and will comprise of construction of 300 housing units made of 2-bedrooms bungalows, while 200 housing units will be of 3-bedrooms bungalows.
In 2007, the state government came on board to embark on the construction of numerous housing units in Minna, Bida, Suleja and Kontagora zone in order to reduce acute problems of accommodation in the state.
Ital Works Nigeria Limited, an Italian firm to carry out the housing project under the present administration’s Public Private Partnership (PPP) initiative having secured the commitment of some primary mortgage firms and foreign consortium for the funding of the project. Nigeria is suffering a housing backlog of over 2 million units now.
It was previously, in 2013, announced that the country would need a total of US$353 billion to cut down housing deficit.