Growing Homelessness in Nigeria

In an estimation of the top 10 countries out of 85 countries, that are suffering homelessness; Nigeria emerged the highest, with 26.70 percent. Punch newspaper reported, on 16 October, 2023; that Nigeria has the world greatest number of homeless people. Nigeria is ranked first among the top 10 countries with 24,400,000, followed by Pakistan, Egypt, Syria, and Dr Congo.

By Olawale Hamzat

It is disheartening while many sleep under bridges. Inequality is a logical offshoot of the iniquitous capitalism system that dehumanize millions of people to benefit little layers.

This explains why the Bola Tinubu government would rather enrich its cabals, buy SUV’s, yacht and presidential jet that worth several billions of Naira, and renovate the Vice President house with  two billion Naira, than providing affordable housing and other social program such as education, health care, water and sanitation, for its people. Indeed, in the name of reforms it religiously implements anti-poor policies that further put more in poverty.

Statistics show that 63% of Nigerians live in multidimensional poverty during the administration of Tinubu due to his harsh anti-poor neo-liberal policies worsening an already bad situation.

However, homelessness is not peculiar to Tinubu government or Nigeria. It is an international feature of the successive capitalist governments whose anti-poor policies and associated economic crises create condition for homelessness as many people cannot afford to build decent house or rent one. It is worse in Nigeria as governments demolish houses of the poor and even the middle class under different guises without providing alternative or adequate compensation.

For instance, houses in Lagos were demolished around Iyana Iba, Okokomaiko, Ojo, and Badagry purportedly for the expansion of the ECOWAS road. As a result, thousands of house owners became homeless without any proper provision of alternative housing for them.

Also, many students usually sleep in lecture rooms because of the high cost of hostel fees in addition to exorbitant school fees.

Sadly, homelessness is bound to be on the rise given the commitment of the government at all levels to policies that promote inequality and poverty.

So, this call for building of a mass movement of working people and youth to consistently resist anti-poor and neo-liberal capitalist policies and mobilise against any demolition without provision of alternative. Such a movement should also fight for the commitment of public resources to provide affordable decent mass housing and other social programmes such as education, health care, water and sanitation, roads, etc. as well as to create conditions for decent jobs for all.

Also importantly, it should be noted that, unlike what obtained in Lagos state during the pre-SAP ‘oil boom’ times under Lateef Jakande between 1979 and 1983, the commitment to neo-liberal policies since the mid-1980s means that no government at any level since the return to the civilian rule has built a decent, affordable mass housing. On a few instances they have built something, it is priced beyond the capacity of ordinary people, for instance in Lagos. The control of industry of building materials like cement and steel by private businesses which only care about super profit also means that building houses by ordinary people themselves is extremely difficult.  All this further underscores the need for mass working peoples’ party to wrest political power form the anti-poor thieving capitalist elite with a view of committing human and material resources of the country for the benefits of all and beginning to end capitalism.