The presidential candidate of the African Action Congress (AAC),
Omoyele Sowore, has vowed to turn Nigeria into a construction site if
elected in the February 16 presidential election.

While speaking at a town hall meeting
with presidential candidates on the state of Nigeria’s housing market
on Saturday, January 12, 2019, Sowore said the Nigerian government must
invest in a housing drive that would provide shelter for all.

He said, “Government must invest in shelter that every Nigerian citizen must be entitled to a place to lay their heads at night.

“What I propose is to put aside $3.6 billion and we’ll turn this country into a construction site.

“We’re in need of 17 million homes, over
80 million Nigerians are without homes. We need to set the standard that
an average of five Nigerians should be entitled to a house: a father, a
mother, and at least three kids.”

N100,000 minimum wage for workers to afford houses

Speaking
further on how to ensure that Nigerians have access to affordable
homes, the Sahara Reporters publisher said he’ll increase the national
minimum wage to N100,000 so that workers are able to afford houses.

“What I’m going to do is to increase the
salary of an average worker to N100,000. I’m going to make sure that the
average Nigerian worker can get N2 million mortgage loan.

“We have to have a policy where
we prioritise mortgage for low income workers and the best way to do it
is to give them a minimum wage that’s a living wage,” he said.

He noted that parts of the problem with
Nigeria’s housing sector is the lack of proper documentation and
transparent land registry system that would expose the fact that only a
few people own all the land in the country.

He promised that housing would be a
fundamental human right under his administration, and urged Nigerians to
stop voting for leaders who deny them of shelter.

“It’s very important to tell Nigerians that we can build Nigeria out of poverty,” he said.

Sowore vows to repeal Land Use Act

Omoyele Sowore

Sowore also strongly objected to Nigeria’s controversial Land Use Act of 1978 and vowed to repeal it as soon as he’s president.

“What we need is to return to land
ownership, but we must be careful not to return to the kind of customary
ownership of land that we had in Nigeria before independence in which
just a few people owned land to the extent that the majority are left
without nothing,” he said.

He also called the 1999 constitution a “fraudulent document imposed on the Nigerian people by the Nigerian military men”.

He promised to invalidate the document and
replace it with “a living document” that’ll be put to a referendum to be
voted on by the Nigerian people and completely eliminate the Land Use
Act.

The 1978 Land Use Act governs land regulation
in the country and has long been criticised for vesting too much power
in state governors who are responsible for allocation of land.

Attempts by previous governments to repeal the Act have failed to bear any fruits.

Other presidential candidates present at Saturday’s event, which took place at the University of Lagos in Yaba, are Kingsley Moghalu of the Young Progressive Party (YPP), Obiageli Ezekwesili of the Allied Congress Party of Nigeria (ACPN), Fela Durotoye of the Alliance for New Nigeria (ANN), and Isaac Ositelu of the Accord Party (AP).

Other presidential candidates that were billed to speak at the event but failed to show up are President Muhammadu Buhari of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Atiku Abubakar of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and Jerry Gana of the Social Democratic Party (SDP).

Nigerians will go to the polls to elect a new
president on February 16, 2019 with Buhari and Atiku considered to be
favourites to win.