Leading Reporters

The proverb that a man is bathing in a river yet having soap in his eyes can’t be truer than in the case of the Nigerian housing challenge. This challenge has remained intractable in spite of the various conscious efforts made by successive Nigerian governments to rein in the monster of homelessness that has plagued the Nation.

Housing is a very critical issue in Nigeria which should command instant attention. Nigeria, a country of over 170 million people, with a huge percentage in the slums, while others are totally homeless, has obviously remained helpless in dealing with the problem

Walking through the streets of Lagos, Abuja, Port Harcourt, Aba and so forth, one is confronted with the eye sore of sham buildings, squatter settlements and other kinds of uninhabitable places, indicative of the fact that either there is no government or that the government is not concerned with the welfare of the citizens.

Nigeria’s housing deficit is a problem the various governments over time have tried to solve with various strategies. Several deft moves by the governments over time have proved unproductive. As far back as 1956, efforts had been made to tackle the housing problem by the setting up of the Federal Mortgage Bank of Nigeria.

The Federal Mortgage Bank of Nigeria is Nigeria’s major mortgage financial institution, saddled with the responsibility to provide funding for agencies and individuals to bridge the housing gap. Among its major mandates are to link the capital market to the housing industry in order to operate a viable housing sector, with view to making primary and secondary Mortgage institutions deliver service to every section of the country and management and administration of the contributory savings scheme known as the National Housing Fund (NHF) established by Act 3 of [1992].

The National Housing Fund (NHF) is a social savings scheme designed to mobilize long-term funds from Nigerian workers, banks, insurance companies and the Federal Government to advance concessionary loans to contributors. This means that there is a whole lot of money at the disposal of the Federal Mortgage Bank of Nigeria.

A lot of Nigerians are still homeless after many years of mortgage finance collected by the Federal Mortgage Bank. The rising cost of housing in Nigeria calls for serious concern. That has caused citizens to beam searchlights on the activities of the major mortgage financing institution and it was allegedly discovered that the bank has been diverting the huge funds collected yearly into other ventures. As economists would say, this has led to critical opportunity costs for the entire nation and especially the low income and no income earners. Such diversions have strangulated the housing sector and are stifling industrialization because a man needs a place to call home before thinking of starting a business.

Allegations are rife that the funds are diverted to cronies and friends of the leadership of the banks. Funds are allegedly disbursed without recourse to due process and objective. It could be noted, from the above, that the functions of the bank are strictly limited to providing affordable housing through working with other financial institutions to make funds available to those who want to go into the business of housing and allied ventures.

There is also the allegation of the reign of tribalism in the bank. Professionalism and ethics are by passed in favour of tribesmen and associates of the Chief Executive of the Institution. Recruitment and even promotion has remained a privilege of a select few who go on leave, sponsored trips abroad and other privileges at will. It is obvious to even the first timer to the building that a particular section of the country has unrestrained access to funds and privileges at the institution. With such a huge diversion of attention, the consequences are that the country is suffering at the hands of the unprofessional team manning the critical and one of the most important financial institutions in Nigeria.

Efforts made by our reporter the federal government and the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission would do well to beam their search light on the institution to enable it deliver on its mandate and to save it from the hands of those who have turned it into their conduit pipe by which self-enrichment is facilitated. This would save our bourgeoning population and our nation from impending implosion. 

On their tenth day at sea, the four Nigerian stowaways crossing the Atlantic in a tiny space above the rudder of a cargo ship ran out of food and drink.

They survived another four days, according to their account, by drinking the sea water crashing just meters below them, before being rescued by Brazilian federal police in the southeastern port of Vitoria.

Their remarkable, death-defying journey across some 5,600 kilometers (3,500 miles) of ocean underlines the risks some migrants are prepared to take for a shot at a better life.

“It was a terrible experience for me,” said 38-year-old Thankgod Opemipo Matthew Yeye, one of the four Nigerians, in an interview at a Sao Paulo church shelter. “On board it is not easy. I was shaking, so scared. But I’m here.”

Their relief at being rescued soon gave way to surprise.

The four men said they had hoped to reach Europe and were shocked to learn they had in fact landed on the other side of the Atlantic, in Brazil. Two of the men have since been returned to Nigeria upon their request, while Yeye and Roman Ebimene Friday, a 35-year-old from Bayelsa state, have applied for asylum in Brazil.

“I pray the government of Brazil will have pity on me,” said Friday, who had already attempted to flee Nigeria by ship once before but was arrested by authorities there.

Both men said economic hardship, political instability and crime had left them with little option but to abandon their native Nigeria. Africa’s most populous country has longstanding issues of violence and poverty, and kidnappings are endemic.

Yeye, a pentecostal minister from Lagos state, said his peanut and palm oil farm was destroyed by floods this year, leaving him and his family homeless. He hopes they can now join him in Brazil.

Friday said his journey to Brazil began on June 27, when a fisherman friend rowed him up to the stern of the Liberian-flagged Ken Wave, docked in Lagos, and left him by the rudder. To his surprise, he found three men already there, waiting for the ship to depart. Friday said he was terrified. He had never met his new shipmates and feared they could toss him into the sea at any moment.

Once the ship was moving, Friday said the four men made every effort not to be discovered by the ship’s crew, who they also worried might offer them a watery grave.

“Maybe if they catch you they will throw you in the water,” he said. “So we taught ourselves never to make a noise.”

Spending two weeks within spitting distance of the Atlantic Ocean was perilous.

To prevent themselves from falling into the water, Friday said the men rigged up a net around the rudder and tied themselves to it with a rope. When he looked down, he said he could see “big fish like whales and sharks.” Due to the cramped conditions and the noise of the engine, sleep was rare and risky. “I was very happy when we got rescued,” he said.

Father Paolo Parise, a priest at the Sao Paulo shelter, said he had come across other cases of stowaways, but never one so dangerous. Their journey paid testament to lengths people will go in search of a new start, he said. “People do unimaginable and deeply dangerous things.” New Credit: Reuters

The initial whispers have now snowballed into full-blown admission that the once respected Federal Character Commission (FCC) has over the years become a castle of corruption where lucrative jobs are sold to unemployed and even employed Nigerians of all creeds and ethnic backgrounds.

This unfortunate classification of the Commission is coming from its current Chairperson, Dr Muheeba Dankaka, who described the FCC as “a marketplace for selling job slots” before her appointment to the office by immediate past President Muhammadu Buhari on April 28, 2020.

Emphatically, Dr Dankaka claimed that her bold attempts to check the alleged corruption and obvious drift of the Commission from its original mandate have unfortunately seen some commissioners ganging up against her within the system.

Speaking during an appearance before the House of Representatives Ad-hoc Committee investigating alleged job racketeering and abuse of Integrated Personnel Payroll Information System (IPPIS) by Ministries, Department and Agencies (MDAs), the FCC boss said there is no denying the fact that government officials have become notorious for selling job slots to Nigerians without batting eyelids.

She informed the Committee thus; “Before I came to this place, they were selling slots. The place was like a market, and you can find out from people who live in Abuja if I am lying. When I came in, I met all the commissioners, and I told them that they gave us the Qur’an [to swear on]. I don’t want anything that would destroy me or my family”.

Quite interestingly, Dankaka was not alone in washing the FCC’s dirty linens in public as some Commissioners, going by the ‘Integrity Group’ tag also accused her of highhandedness, job racketeering, abuse of extant laws and the FCC establishment Act since arriving to head the Commission.

The unfolding drama was against the backdrop of the House Committee’s directives that the FCC’s Chairperson and all the 36 commissioners must appear before it to answer questions on their current duty tour and activities in the Agency.

Addressing the House Committee on their counter-allegations, the Commissioner representing Osun State in the commission, Abdulrazak Adewuyi, and Rivers State counterpart, Okwacha Augustine claimed that Dr Dankaka has been running the Commission’s affairs in violation of Section 14(3) of the 1999 Constitution (as amended), Section 2 of the FCC Act and other extant laws.

However, Dankaka denied the allegations and accused the commissioners from the ‘Integrity Group’ of mischief and blackmail, insisting that those making the allegations had been antagonistic following her refusal to compromise and accede to their whims and caprices.

In a viral video of the panel session, Dankaka said her move to stop the sale of job slots at the commission on her assumption of office did not go down well with some of the commissioners.

She said, “Before I came here, I have made my name. I have made my money. Let me tell you a small story. Some of them (commissioners) have reasons why they are attacking me. When I first came in, most of them were my close people. All of them were always in my office, but what they wanted me to do I told them I cannot do it.

“I am a very quiet person and I keep certain secrets as executive chairman. I have to swallow certain things and leave everything in the hands of God. Before I came to this place, they were selling (job) slots. The place was like a market. And you can find out from the people living in Abuja if I am lying. When I came in, I met all the commissioners and told them I don’t want anything that will destroy me and my family. All of them can bear me witness.”

She further alleged that a commissioner bought a landed property and promised the seller to pay for it with job slots, but she deliberately thwarted the evil plan which drew the ire of the said Commissioner and his comrades in the fraudulent business.

Having listened to the feuding parties, the House Committee Chairman, Yusuf Adamu Gagdi, directed the chairperson to submit her response to the allegations in writing as well as all other documents required for the investigation by Friday, July 28, 2023.

The Committee also directed that the FCC Chairperson should appear with all the 36 commissioners on Monday, July 31, 2023 for the resumed investigative hearing.