Following conflicting reports and figures on Nigeria’s housing deficit, the federal government has unveiled plans to launch a national housing data centre that is expected to lay to rest speculations on figures relating to housing deficit, the volume and value of the deficit, and the size of the opportunity.
Over the years, investors and professionals in this sector have always expressed concerns on the lack of data that could guide decisions or provide clarity on the opportunities in the sector.
“Nigeria needs dependable data in its housing sector. One of the biggest problems we have is a lack of data. People keep quoting 17 million units because there is no other data to prove or disprove it. We talk of homes demolished, burnt or new ones built, but who is taking record of the houses that are being built and the ones we are losing?” Erejuwa Gbadebo, managing director, Eko Development Limited, queried.
One of the things the housing industry should do, according to her, is to start taking stock of what is available—what house types are there and what they exchange hands for. There must be a way of capturing this data so that we have accurate numbers and should not continue to fight a battle we may have won or lost,” she advised.
Federal Ministry of Housing and Urban Development (FMHUD), which is coordinating the Data Centre, says it will be fully operational by December, a move expected to transform Nigeria’s housing and real estate policy landscape through credible, evidence-based data.
The centre is expected to bring together key public and private stakeholders to harmonise housing statistics across the country, track progress in addressing the housing deficit, and provide accurate information, especially for investment decisions.
Taofeeq Olatinwo, chairman, Technical Committee, National Housing Data Programme (NHDP), was quoted as saying that the Date Centre will operate as a federated system, allowing states, Ministries, Departments, and Agencies (MDAs) to feed data at regular intervals into a unified national platform.
Olatinwo hopes that this approach will ensure both state-level disaggregation and national coordination, enabling the government to identify housing gaps, affordability trends, and emerging urban patterns.
“The target is for the Data Centre to go live in December 2025,” he said, assuring that “it will be a federated system with inputs from states, MDAs, and private developers at defined frequencies, in line with global standards.”
