The recent revelation by the Minister of Housing and Urban Development, Muttaqha Rabe Darma, to the effect that since its inception 52 years ago, Nigeria has recorded more than 650 building collapses and over 1,600 deaths is quite alarming.

The fact that, in most cases of the incessant building collapse, nobody was licensed and nobody was punished to serve as deterrent, underscores the extent of regulatory negligence, structural defects, and weak law enforcement in the building industry.

The gory situation ought to rattle the relevant authorities and other major stakeholders to go back to the drawing board with a view to devising a more robust and pragmatic strategy towards stemming the lethal tide of building collapse in the country, particularly in major cities such as Abuja, Port Harcourt, and Lagos.

Speaking at the Stakeholders Workshop on Validation of the National Housing Data Programme Report and the Regulation of the Built Environment in the Housing Sector in Abuja, Darma explained that almost every one of those buildings had a designer, a builder, and an approving officer.

“Six million Nigerians contributed to the National Housing Fund of the Federal Mortgage Bank of Nigeria, which stood between N120 and N150 billion from them yearly and booked fewer than 500 mortgages. Our mortgage -to-GDP ratio is between 0.02 and 0.07 per cent. South Africa is 30. Britain is 70. That is not poverty; that is bad plumbing.”

The housing minister argued that the National Housing and Built Environment Regulation Policy displacement and a National Data Observatory are essential. He proposed a National Housing Industry Regulatory Commission as well as the reform of the FMBN to open the NHF to traders, artisans, and drivers with N5,000 a month.

“For 20 years, we’ve quarrelled over whether the deficit is 15 million. Our Technical Committee puts the core deficit at about 20 or 28 million units. The World Bank Adequate Housing Index and the UN-Habitat Household Crowding Index have theirs, too. No serious investor finances an argument,” he added.

Also speaking, the Permanent Secretary, Shuaib Belgore, explained that they are seeking to establish a credible, reliable, and sustainable national housing data ecosystem that will support evidence-based policymaking, improve planning, strengthen investment decisions, and enhance the monitoring and evaluation of housing interventions across the country.

According to Belgore, the second is the Regulation of the Built Environment seeking to strengthen regulatory oversight, promote compliance with established standards, improve professionalism within the construction industry, and address the persistent challenge of building collapse through coordinated institutional reforms.

“Nigeria’s housing sector has been challenged by fragmented data systems, inadequate coordination among institutions, and weak regulatory enforcement. These limitations have constrained effective planning, reduced investor confidence, and affected the overall quality, safety, and sustainability of housing development nationwide.”

Belgore, therefore, maintained that following the increasing incidence of building collapse across the country, the minister constituted a Ministerial Task Team to review the underlying causes and recommend comprehensive reforms aimed at strengthening the regulation of the built environment.

Similarly, he emphasised that the recommendations arising from that assignment, together with other ongoing regulatory initiatives of the ministry, will form an important component of our deliberations during this stakeholders’ workshop.

The non-compliance with specifications/standards, use of substandard building materials and equipment, non-enforcement of existing laws, and the endemic poor work ethics of Nigerians at large have been cited as some of the factors responsible for building collapse.

It is against this backdrop that Blueprint commends the federal government’s initiative aimed at tackling the increasing incidence of building collapse in the country with its attendant high death toll, enormous private and public sectors’ economic losses, as well the dent on Nigeria’s image among the comity of nations.

Regrettably, Nigeria’s mortgage-to-GDP ratio of between 0.02 and 0.07 per cent is among the lowest globally, considering that South Africa is 30 per cent, while Britain is 70 per cent. Consequently, the President Bola Ahmed Tinubu renewed hope administration should address this fundamental flaw, which has deprived a large proportion of Nigerians of shelter – one of the three basic necessities of life; the others being food and clothing.

We urge the federal government to strengthen the legal framework on building, especially its prosecutorial sub-sector, with a view to enabling strict law enforcement, the prosecution, and conviction of culprits of building codes and other regulations. The media must also intensify public enlightenment and sensitisation on the dangers of building collapse. This will, without a doubt, go a long way towards solving the increasing incidence of building collapse in Nigeria.