By Ahmed Ilallah
Jigawa State Government under the leadership of Malam Umar Namadi has made a record-breaking history regarding housing developments of the 32-year lifetime of Jigawa State.
He launched the development of one thousand five hundred housing units across the state at a time, the highest in history.
Housing, a sanctuary of all beings, is the basic factor for a human to survive and attain all the other secondary hierarchies of life. It is also a key to the economic development of any state.
Housing development is a significant key sector in economic growth and development, the sector plays a role in the social and economic development of any state and the country. It contributes to economic development by impacting major macroeconomic indicators like employment generation, savings, investment, labour productivity. It also affects the well-being of the people and their physical and mental health of the people.
Many economists see housing as the concept of contribution to growth and development and how it might impact productivity in other sectors of the economy.
Howenstine (1975) “argued that better housing might lead to higher productivity, by improving health, reducing absenteeism, and so forth, he evaluated this concept from the economic view of point, he evaluated this concept from the economic view of point, noting that, investments should be made in housing only where these were “clearly necessary ………..”.
The government’s decision on its actions of development must concentrate on all companions that will accelerate the development and with key priorities of needs.
Jigawa State which was created in 1991 by the Military Administration of General Ibrahim Babangida, is a rural state where the citizens are diverged and living in rural areas, simply Jigawa is a rural state, the idea of creating the State is to develop the rural areas.
When the state was created housing was the major challenge for government activities and other socio-economic activities. At the early stage, the civil servants including the governor are coming from the sister state Kano and other urban towns to Dutse the state capital to work daily.
The reasons for mass housing by the past and the present governments of Jigawa State is to accommodate the public servants to enhance the labour productivity, especially the state workers, in addition, the decision creates skilled and unskilled employment.
In 1991 the Military Administration of Colonel Olayinka Sule developed a small portion of housing to accommodate the top senior civil servants in the state capital Dutse, the administration of Barrister Ali Sa’adu Birinin Kudu developed one thousand units in the state capital, to accommodate the state civil servants shuttling from outside the state to Dutse, these houses are one fully occupied till date.
The mass housing development accelerated from then, the Administration of former governors also continued the provisions of the houses, mostly in the state capital, up to the administration of Sule Lamido, who introduced modern housing projects in the state like Abubakar Rimi, Inuwa Dutse, Godiya Miyetti housing estates, all in the state capital.
Even the past administration of Governor Muhammadu Badaru Abubakar has engaged in developing mass housing across the Local Government Areas in the state, four to eight houses were developed in some local governments in the state, but the problem is that most of these houses were not occupied, including the ones in Dutse, the State Capital.
But, for thorough looks into the economic status of a growing state like Jigawa at the moment, is a mass housing program today a must necessary for developing the socio-economic of the state?
Looking at the above houses developed, some of these houses are not occupied, due to some reasons, such as poor locations, economic reasons, the houses cost beyond the capability of civil servants, can civil servants with monthly net earned of fifty to eighty thousand afford to buy the house of six to eight million? The economic strategy of mass housing policy is not in conformity with the economic power of the civil servants, who are the main target.
Though the housing policy of the present administration of Governor Malam Umar Namadi has distributed the houses to the urban areas based on the populations and availability of public institutions, there is hope that the houses to be occupied, unlike some previous houses that were abandoned.
The present administration’s policy can vary in achieving the objective and returns of value if the houses are well located in the proximity of the public servants in consideration of the current economic challenges affecting most of the public servants.
If the current housing development project is affordable and situated, it will not only pay the housing deficit in the state and the labour productivity, but it can also enhance the other perimeters of the state economy.
