The shortfall in the availability of decent housing is compounded by rather lame mortgage sector. Yet, a nation cannot hope to prosper if it confines its people to hovels and slums. Similar failures of planning have also created traffic problems, as the road network has not been expanded to cope with the increase in users. The quality of living problems created by poor housing and a bad road network is further compounded by the absence of a comfortable mass transit system. Yet, correcting a dire social situation such as exists in Nigeria would require a new approach based on subsidiarity.
Policy makers have to embrace the notion that local problems are best handled at local levels.
An overcentralised state cannot efficiently redress the mounting social problems in the country if it chooses to solve them in the big brother manner. Rather, it can best tackle the problems by reconfiguring the distribution of powers and responsibility to empower the states and local governments. That way the country can be built from bottom up and leadership redefined as the provision of problem solving services. This new approach would advise the Federal Government to drop plans to construct housing estates all over the country. While the centre could take a lead in setting national quality standards for housing, it should leave the actual delivery of housing services to the lower tiers and private interests.