The Federal Government has increased the budgetary allocation to the Federal Ministry of Housing and Urban Development by seven per cent, raising it from N98.13bn in 2025 to N105bn in the 2026 Appropriation Bill.

Budget documents show that the allocation is intended to support housing delivery, urban renewal, renewable energy projects, and federal infrastructure nationwide.

A breakdown reveals N8.05bn for 20,000 housing units under the Renewed Hope Agenda Housing Scheme, N3.74bn for ongoing projects under the National Housing Programme, and N2.1bn for prototype housing developments in Suleja, Niger State, and Ikorodu, Lagos State.

Federal infrastructure projects also received allocations, with N840m earmarked for secretariat projects in 11 states. Road construction and rehabilitation projects attracted over N2.3bn across Kaduna, Sokoto, Ekiti, Borno, and other states.

Renewable energy projects, particularly solar street lighting, were allocated N700m in Kaduna, N140m in Sokoto, and additional funds in 14 other states. Urban renewal and slum upgrading interventions also featured in the budget, alongside allocations for institutional reforms, capacity development, legal case prosecution, and digitalisation of housing and land administration records.

Despite the increase, stakeholders say the allocation is inadequate to address Nigeria’s housing deficit. The Executive Director of the Housing Development Advocacy Network, Festus Adebayo, said, “Comparing the budget of last year to this year is nothing.

“Why is that? Because last year, the budget was lower than the previous year, and then we called on the legislative arm of the government to increase the budget, and it was increased last year. But how much of that budget was released to the ministry, and to what extent was it funded? The evidence before us confirmed that the budget was not even funded up to 50 per cent.

“The government should show more seriousness by allocating more to social housing, so that people who need houses can get them. It is just on paper. This is how they write it every year. The political will of the government is not there, because the possibility that they will not fund up to that amount that they wrote is very clear.

“I am saying the government should change its attitude to housing in Nigeria and should not leave it only in the hands of the private sector. That makes it impossible for the people who really need the houses to own them. Towards the end of 2025, the prices of rent changed to the extent that people could no longer afford the rent. These people have started going to the outskirts of the city.

“So, there is no better time for the government to declare an emergency in the housing sector. The emergency is due to the high prices of building materials. The emergency is a result of the cost of production. The amount you pay to access land, the money you are paid to buy the land, is over any money you get from the bank. The interest rate is double digits, 30 per cent above.

Adebayo stated that rent consumes over 50 per cent of household income, stressing that there is rising homelessness and overcrowding, as workers are now moving to distant cities. “The situation has reached a level where we have to declare 0.1 per cent of the entire budget to housing,” he stated.

An official from the housing ministry, who pleaded not to have his name in print due to the lack of authorisation to speak on the matter, also said, “Towards the end of 2023, Vice President Shettima was speaking to journalists, and he said that Nigeria needed N20tn to offset its housing deficit.

“A year later, in 2024, the minister had conversations with three committees. So they came together and agreed to support the push by the ministry for a N500bn annual budget to be able to make meaningful improvements in the sector in terms of housing delivery, to curtail the deficit. So that agreement was in place, and the National Assembly agreed that they would support that push.

“Unfortunately, in 2025, when the budget was released, we saw that the ministry got less than N100bn, and this N100bn is not even for housing delivery alone. It has overheads, it has recurrent expenditure, and other projects. The ministry is also involved in urban regeneration, slum upgrading, and other community projects.

“We thought that it would be better in 2026, but unfortunately, it’s just N105bn. So that’s where we are. So my take is that even though we are pushing, the President is not showing the will to actually release that money to build houses for Nigerians. That’s the body language.”

The official observed that the 2026 budget is over N40tn, stressing that “the budget for housing is not even up to one per cent of that budget. It’s like 0.2 or 0.3 per cent of the entire budget.”

Nigeria is faced with a massive housing deficit, as the available houses are often overpriced, particularly in urban centres. This makes it tough for the majority of the low-income earners in the country to live far away from urban centres, spending so much on transportation while commuting to work.