Population pressure in Lagos State

To meet housing needs caused by high population growth, Lagos State would have to build 224,000 new housing units per year, ‘Vanguard’ daily quoted a state official as saying on Tuesday at the opening of a construction exhibition. Housing Commissioner Lanre Towry-Coker said that the state government had so far built 45,000 new facilities in the last four years.

The high cost of construction material and workers, and the lack of housing financing schemes have been the main obstacles to a mass construction of new housing facilities, Towry-Coker said. Skilled labour is rare and thus costly: Towry-Coker said training unskilled labourers would help reduce overall housing costs, the Lagos-based daily reported. Research on and development of more cost-effective material would also allow the state to satisfy the people’s needs, he said.

Lagos State’s population is growing by about 300,000 people per annum and it has about 1,308 habitants per square kilometre. The state capital, Lagos, is expected to hit the 24-million mark in 2015, the daily reported.