We met once and they asked me to return to the party and I said I’m not coming back. We are in the same country. Let’s do a housing programme for a million apartments per annum so that mortgages can begin to happen. We all came.

We got a good apartment in Utako and they said it’s N10 million and that we have 15 years to pay. You know you are paying towards ownership, not to a shark of a landlord who is asking you N1.5 million. Tomorrow, he says he has doubled it and if you don’t like, you pack. Which young man in London goes looking for a plot? He looks for an apartment. In Germany, France and the U.S., it’s out of date looking for plot. Even the plot now is too difficult to get. You buy your apartment and you have 15 years to pay at maybe 5 per cent interest. They said it was a great idea. We worked it out to create 27 million jobs. I said 200,000 in Lagos, 200,000 in Abuja, 200,000 in Port Harcourt, Ibadan, Kano, Onitsha a hundred thousand each. The rest of the place, at least 20,000 and 30,000, including university hostels. Imagine the jobs for those delivering sharp sand, laterite, tipper drivers, quarries, tillers, electricians, architects, painters.

That’s how Singapore grew. Last month, they gave N2 billion to governors to share. On the other hand, if that money had gone into housing, you can imagine the boom. Add that to agric and you would have mopped up all the unemployment and reduced the crime rate.
AUDU OGBE ON SUNDAY SUN, NOV 22 2009.

SEE FOLLOW-UP:On the other hand, if this economy were free and we say we are doing a million houses and two of you decide to form a company making doors. You are producing 50,000 doors a year at N25,000; that’s good money. You don’t need to see any governor or Minister because you would be busy. If a governor wants to see you, what is it about because you have a schedule. Your products are in demand; you have distributors waiting and you want your boys to work three shifts.

You don’t have time looking for Senator XYZ or former this and that because you are busy. We are spending over a billion dollars importing tiles every year from Switzerland, Spain and Portugal and Italy. There is clay, there is kaolin and water to make tiles here, make paint and make nails. Imagine the boom. But you can’t do it. You can’t raise a bank loan and the opportunities are just closed. You have no electricity. Greece is a country of nine million people. They have 10 refineries. Abu Dhabi is the capital of United Arab Emirates.

There are 1.5 million people there. They have 11,000 megawatts for 1.5 million people. We are trying to get 6,000 megawatts for 130 million. We are now at the manufacturing levels of 1960 in this country. Go to Ogba and Ikeja in Lagos and see factories that are shut down. Go to the Southeast where the Igbo really wanted to manufacture. Go through there and see carcasses of industries.

AUDU OGBE ON SUNDAY SUN, NOV 22, 2009.