Promoting the Use of Local Building Materials in Nigerian housing construction: The Problems and the Prospects
| Author | Don C I Okpala |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1002/j.1099-162X.1980.tb01061.x |
| Published date | 01 April 1980 |
| Date | 01 April 1980 |
Promoting theUse
of
Local Building
Materials
in Nigerian housing construction:
The Problems
and
theProspects
+
DON
C I
OKPALA*
Like many urbanized and urbanizing societies, Nigeria is experiencing acute difficulties
with
the
provision of adequate housing for her citizens, especially in the urban centres.
The
nature
and
incidence
of
these difficulties and problems have been fairly widely discussed
elsewhere and need not be repeated here. ISuffice to say that there us an acute shortage of
housing unitsrelative to the demands for them.
The
consequence is high rent levels, official
rent
controlregulations notwithstanding. In addition to demand pressures, the othermajor
factor in the high cost
of
housing (even in government housing projects), is the very high
import content
of
building materials. Over 70 per cent by value of the building materials of
most
urban
houses, is imported.
The
objectives of this paper are to show the magnitude of
building materials imports into Nigeria, and the impact of this magnitude on housing
production and housing costs; to review the measures and policies being adopted by both
the government and the private industrial sector to encourage the use of local building
materials; and why these measures are not having much effect. Finally suggestions are
made as to the line
of
policy and practice that could effectively elicit greater popular use of
indigenous local materials in housing construction.
Magnitude
of
building materials
Imports
Table
1 shows the production, importation and total consumption of cement in Nigeria
1970-1977. It shows that the country dropped from producing as much as S6 per cent of its
total cement consumption in 1970 to producingonly about 37 per cent of such consumption
in 1977. Although there were continuing increases in the absolute tonnage produced locally
between these years, the relative proportion decreased significantly. This can be directly
attributed
to the massive post-civil war reconstruction and construction programmes,
particularly in the public sector - a construction programme of such magnitude that the
domestic plants could not cope with the required amount of cement. Consequently, there
was the massive importation of cement that virtually paralyzed the country's ports in the
mid
1970s.
*Dr Okpala is on the teaching staff at the
Nigerian
Institute of
Social
and
Economic
Research,
University of Ibadan, Nigeria.
"Housing DensityStandards: AConstraint on Urban
Housing
Production inNigeria',
(EKISTICS
Vol45 No 270, June 1978; pp 249·257).
118
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