Nigeria’s housing crisis continues to deepen, with the Association of Housing Corporations of Nigeria (AHCN) putting the country’s housing deficit at 14.925 million units and estimating that another 15.2 million housing units were substandard as of 2025.
The association has also unveiled a five year plan aimed at supporting the delivery of 740,000 housing units across the country between 2027 and 2031. The initiative is part of a broader call for major reforms to strengthen State Housing Corporations and reposition them as key drivers of mass housing development.
The President and Chairman of the Council of AHCN, Esv. Eno Obongha, announced the plan on Monday in Abuja while delivering the 2026 State of the Nation’s Housing Address to mark World Habitat Day, which was observed under the theme, “Adequate Housing for All.”
Obongha said the latest figures from the National Housing Data Centre showed that Nigeria’s housing deficit had reached 14.925 million units, while 15.2 million units were considered substandard as of 2025.
He said the new programme, known as the ERAHOMS 740,000 Mass Housing Initiative, would use several approaches to achieve its target. These include direct housing development, public private partnerships, serviced land schemes, mortgage backed housing, cooperative housing and partnerships with private developers.
According to him, the initiative was developed in response to the country’s worsening housing shortage and the growing difficulty faced by low and middle income Nigerians in securing decent and affordable homes.
Rising construction costs, persistent inflation and declining purchasing power have made access to adequate housing increasingly difficult for many families. Obongha argued that the situation should no longer be viewed simply as a problem affecting the housing sector, noting that its consequences extend into several areas of national life.
“Housing goes beyond a mere roof over the head. It is about human dignity, family stability, economic productivity, public health, security and national development,” he said.
He maintained that housing must become a central part of Nigeria’s economic development strategy because access to decent accommodation affects the wellbeing of families, the productivity of workers and the broader development of communities.
Obongha also called for greater commitment to the use of a single, reliable and regularly updated national housing database. He described the ongoing National Housing Data initiative involving the National Bureau of Statistics, National Population Commission, Central Bank of Nigeria, Federal Mortgage Bank of Nigeria, Federal Housing Authority and AHCN as an important step towards improving planning in the sector.
He said housing data should not remain limited to reports and statistics but should serve as a practical foundation for government decisions on policy, housing finance, land allocation and actual housing delivery.
The AHCN president further identified State Housing Corporations as an important but largely underused structure that could play a bigger role in addressing the country’s housing shortage.
He noted that the corporations already exist across the states and have accumulated decades of experience in estate development, serviced land provision and public housing delivery.
However, he expressed concern that many of them were operating far below their potential because of inadequate funding, limited access to long term financing, land related challenges, outdated legislation and weak revenue generation systems.
He also pointed to the limited integration of State Housing Corporations into wider state housing policies, saying these challenges must be addressed if the institutions are to make a stronger contribution to solving Nigeria’s housing crisis.
Obongha’s position reflects a growing need for coordinated action among federal and state governments, housing institutions, financial organisations and private developers to expand housing supply and make decent accommodation more accessible to Nigerians.
With the ERAHOMS 740,000 initiative expected to run from 2027 to 2031, the AHCN is seeking a stronger institutional approach that combines reliable housing data, improved financing and more effective state housing agencies to accelerate the delivery of affordable homes across Nigeria.
