HABITAT: RITUALISTS USE LOCKED UP HOUSES, CAUSE SHORTAGES!
- By Comrade Dayo Onibiyo
I recall making a call for forced-tax on locked up buildings and Estates via environmental, electricity, water and other utilities at a United Nations (UN) Habitat sponsored Kogi State Government hosted Programme that took place in Ogori, Ogorimagongo LGA headquarters in 2014, where I was among the State participants, then as a Special Assistant to the Governor on Monitoring and Evaluation.
I made this call as an immediate way to start making up for the said under assumed Habitat deficit in Nigeria, Africa’s most populous black nation.
To me, the issue of several unoccupied houses, in some of the estates which litters most part of Lagos and Abuja in particular, while Nigerians and residents of the cities runs around to find a place to put their heads, is uncalled for, I insisted that, the situations where we plan and plan in long terms while Nigerians die and dies in short terms are barbaric, myopic and uncalled for, inhuman, deliberate wickedness to mankind and should be resisted by all well-meaning human beings and organizations.
Looking from the perspective that these estates are first and foremost, mostly proceeds from stolen public funds, which in the first place robbed the people of availability of affordable houses and in more cases block access to "actually habitable" houses.
We plan to make up the deficit, we don't plan to recover the lost availables, found in these unoccupied houses, which are the cumulative losses and until they are being occupied (consumed) by human beings they remain monumental waste.
Has it ever occurred to you, that what they do and Government allowed them to do, is to simply put exorbitant prices on these houses in term of rents or lease or sales, with attendant unrealistic conditions, this is to keep people away? Why will anyone invest so much and choose to tie it down despite knowing that it's a long term investment pattern?
The answer is very simple, most of them are into occultism and rituals in addition to looting public funds; hence they kidnap, kill inside those houses and do all other wicked things inside and it is in their own eyes, safe for them to do so, except for Gods judgement or an intervention of a responsibly responsive and alive government to react and put a stop to such dastardly acts.
Briefly and ahead of the "dreaming 2030" deadline of the Sustainable Development, am afraid that these attitudes by a few individuals and those lackadaisical conducts of governments in Nigeria can not deliver the dream to become a reality as the vulnerables and even the assumed "not vulnerable' will not and cannot access good transportation, basic facilities how much talk of a safe city.
May all habitat agencies, be it mortgage houses, stake holders, MBAN, REDAN, the public make a great PUSH for Government at federal and States levels to give directives as follows:
1. That RANDOM MONTHLY SECURITY SEARCHES be conducted on such locked up, unoccupied buildings by the Police, NIA, SSS, DMI and the cost of the exercise be pegged at 3% the total cost of the buildings, which the owners of the building will defray.
2. The Environmental agencies regularly enter such buildings to INSPECT, CLEAN and FUMIGATE, to avoid dangerous reptiles making them their habitation, and thus turning around to harm passer byes or other people in the neighbourhood occupied -building while taxes in this respect must be paid to the respective agencies.
3. That ELECTRICITY BILLS should be paid to the authority in charge of power consumption,and such bill payments made monthly on at least room bases and environs.
4. That the WATER AGENCIES should also charge accordingly on monthly bases.
It is clear that, if these taxes are enforced, the locked up buildings will be opened for people to occupy and the society will be a safe place to be.
The rate at which people go missing in Lagos and Abuja are alarming and uncalled for and must be arrested forthwith.
If the Millennium Development Goal (MDG) successor, (which am sure, we are yet to REVIEW), known as Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 11 target of safety must be accomplished in term of habitat safety and sustainabilities, then, these situations calls for a drastic real time pragmatic action by all stake holders.
The matter of habitat can therefore be further, confronted from a tripodal point of view:
1. Offer of assistance to complete uncompleted abandoned buildings after verification of ownership and dispute situation as well as the structure capability.
2. Fast tracking of viable ongoing building projects in view of it being occupied by the public and
3. Support of offer for building capable organizations with good standings
While, I must again refer to the content of SDG 11 that bothers elaborately on making cities, inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable, which may look into granting access to roads and toilets in particularly at slums and near slum areas dressed in the fronts beautifully, mostly found around markets in most State capital in Nigeria. Try to entre the interior of those outwardly beautiful popular markets in Kano, Abeokuta, Aba, Lagos, Ilorin, etc and you will be shocked what you will see! How do you then sustain this kind of cities?
If these taxes are applied, and these locked ups are opened, the housing deficit will have come down by at least 11.4% as my last survey showed over 6 million houses, not rooms are locked up across the country, some for as long as 10 years and some for less.
The UN, the AU, the Human Rights bodies should rise to the occasion and take the bull by it's horns, the same call, I here extend to the Senate Committees & House Committees on Housing, environment, FCT and others.
The issue of planning is key and must be taken sacrosanct as we plan for constructing buildings valued in the range of N40m and so on, and I ask how many average Nigerians can afford that, we fail to look even at the average level how much less the people below the average, are we saying, housing schemes of N10m or less are impossible? So, how do we get to where houses can be affordable to the vulnerable.
If by 2030, further losses to GDP contributions by habitants will be reduced, then enhanced inclusive and sustainable urbanization for capacity to do participatory integrated and sustainable human settlements must be vigorously pursued.
The reality, then is that we must consider the urbanization scheme that covers municipal waste management and other safety guides, which will in no small measures, significantly reduce the number of deaths and the number of people affected negatively either as having contracted any diseases, largely due to un-planned or poor habitation conditions.
We must substantially increase the number of cities and human settlements, while we adopt and implement the integrated policies, which must have concrete plans towards inclusion, resource efficiency, mitigation and adaptation to climate change and resiliency to disasters.
All these we must develop and implement, in line with the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction (2015-2030, holistic disaster risk management at all levels)
Frankly, these are just but to mention a few of my worries about habitation and safety to HUMANS.
