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Amid ‘homelessness’ in Nigeria, particularly in Lagos, where housing demand-supply gap is conservatively put at three million units, the federal secretariat in Lagos valued at N40 billion has continued to waste away several years after it was acquired for redevelopment.
The secretariat, which provided office space for federal civil servants while Lagos served as federal capital, was part of the Federal Government properties in Lagos offloaded into the property market between 2003 and 2006 by the Olusegun Obasanjo administration in the country.
BusinessDay checks reveal that the value of that asset, including the land and the physical structure, which has been wasting away since the federal capital was moved from Lagos to Abuja, over 30 years ago, is about N40 billion and it could have been more if the asset had been in use.
“That asset is standing on prime land; don’t forget that it is in Ikoyi which is one of the most expensive, if not the most expensive, locations in Nigeria”, an estate surveyor and valuer who pleaded anonymity told BusinessDay in an interview on the value of the asset.
“A lot of things are very difficult to understand in this country”, says Johnson Chukwuma, a structural engineer who is deeply worried that a high profile national asset like that secretariat is allowed to waste away and lose its value on daily basis because of parochial interests.
“I am still in doubt if it is really the Lagos State government that is holding down the redevelopment of that facility into residential apartments to provide homes for the residents of the state”, Chukwuma wondered in an interview. He explained that with a housing deficit estimated at 3 million units and avowed determination to provide housing for the residents through partnership with the private sector, the state should be encouraging the redevelopment of the facility and not stalling it.
CHUKA UROKO
