FHA leadership: Oyetunde Ojo carries on from where Ashafa stopped

By Modestus Umenzekwe:

The news of the appointment of Hon. Oyetunde Ojo as the new helmsman at the Federal Housing Authority (FHA) has elicited wide accolades, eulogies and commendations across the nation and beyond. 

Although Ojo is married to President Bola Tinubu’s eldest daughter, Mrs. Folashade Tinubu-Ojo, the Iyaloja of Lagos, the choice could be rightly described as a round peg in a round hole. Ojo replaced Sen. Gbenga Ashafa, the erudite Engineer and master strategist who served and brought unusual transformation as FHA’s Managing Director since 2020 till just recently.

Ojo who represented Ekiti west, Ijero and Efon federal constituency at the House of Representatives has over a decade of work experience in the housing and hospitality industries; he holds a Master’s degree in Peace and Conflict Studies from the University of Greenwich, United Kingdom; he is an alumnus of Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government as well as the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School of Housing Finance.

Among the starting lineups of present FHA management as appointed by the President include Mathias Byuan (Housing Finance and Accounts), Umar Abdullahi (Business Development), Oluremi Omowaiye (Project Implementation) and Ezekiel Nya-Etok (Estate Services) were appointed all executive directors at the FHA.

Since the appointment, Nigerians are agog knowing fully well that Hon Ojo’s appointment was a choice well-made and has the tendency to enhance the mass housing policy of the APC led government. For many, the appointment of Ojo is in tandem with the continuity mantra of the present government whereby every good policy is taken to another level even by another administration hence Hon Oyetunde Ojo is to continue where Senator Gbenga Ashafa has stopped.

It is also possible that with Ashafa, the new Managing Director would have no problem as he has an experienced administrator to go to and tap from his wealth of experience in case he needed advice and direction as no man is an island. And the reasons are not far-fetched because Sen. Ashafa is a master strategist.

Since coming into power in 2015, the APC government has shown that it has mass housing mantra as the fulcrum and a major trust of its central policy. Of course housing over the years has become one of the measurement indexes for good governance. In this regard, both the federal government and the states under the leadership of the All Progressives Congress (APC) have seen mass housing as oxygen that sustained the government hence the choice of the managing directors of the agency has always been done with utmost fare paying attention to professionalism, and so since 2020, as Managing Director of FHA, Senator Gbenga Ashafa, displayed unalloyed sense of passion, professionalism, hard-work and courage in the implementation of the APC mass housing agenda, right from the time of former President, Muhammadu Buhari till the Renewed Hope Administration of President Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu.

As a management, the authority under Senator Ashafa took a number of proactive steps to reposition the authority in the delivery of its mandate, first when he took over the affairs of the Authority was to restore the confidence of the staff by clearing the protracted issue of backlog of promotions, which was contentious between staff and management of the authority. With his management team, he ensured that lands belonging to the Authority across the country were recovered and secured from encroachment.

The authority also completed and commissioned the Zuba Housing Estate in Abuja, with a dedicated Independent Injection Power station that serviced the estate. Ashafa also kick-started the construction of the phase one of the Bwari Housing Estate and commenced the FHA Golden Jubilee Estate in the Mbora District of Abuja, a project that was to be replicated in all the geo-political zones of our country.

Also arrangements were ongoing for the commencement of the Diaspora Smart City in Kabusu, Maitama 2. The project was conceptualized as a response to the challenges the compatriots in the diaspora face in acquiring befitting houses back in Nigeria. It was also designed to cater for Nigerians at home, by providing such standard environment and infrastructure that can compete anywhere in the world in line with the Green Environment Regime.

Ashafa in the FHA was a game changer that transformed the trajectory of housing in Nigeria, for the first time, government housing provision performance became the face saver of Buhari’s administration, when it became too obvious that the government of President Muhammadu Buhari was being dimmed by the activities of terrorists, bandits, and general insecurity, the housing ministry provided something to cheer for that administration as housing infrastructure sprang up in all the nook and cranny of the six-geopolitical zones in the country.

Senator Ashafa of course was not alone in the FHA success story as he worked with a team of management and staff that keyed into his vision for the housing agency to achieve its assignment. With him were Barr (Mrs) Hajara Kadiri, in charge of PPP; Engr. Chinonso Sam Omoke, Executive Director, Projects Implementation; Hauwa Babakobi, Executive Director, Estate Services; Adama Kure, Executive Director, Finance and Accounts; Samuel Omole, Ag. Executive Director, Management Services and his team of General Managers and Zonal Managers.

While in charge of FHA, estates under Ashafa’s jurisdiction include Festac Town, Lagos; Ipaja New Town, Lagos; Abesan 1&4, Lagos; Satellite 2, Lagos; Abesan 2; Lagos; Gwaninpa 11, Abuja; Maitama, Abuja; Asokoro, Abuja; Kado Phase 1 & 11, Abuja; Old Karu Phase 1, Abuja; New Karu, Phase 11, Abuja; Kubwa Phase 1, 11, 111, & 1V, Abuja.

Other estates include Rumueme/TransAmadi, Port Harcourt; Sharade, Kano; Mariri, Kano; Gonin Gora, Kaduna; North Bank, Markudi, Benue State; Runjin Sambo Phase 1&2, Sokoto; Old Airport Road, Sokoto; Egbeada, Owerri; Irete, Owerri; Iguosa, Benin, Edo State; Osogbo, Osun State. Lugbe, Abuja; Apo/Guzape, Abuja; Zuba, Abuja.

These estates are not just estates, but they sit on acreages that if combined may be bigger than some African countries and an indication that Senator Ashafa is a good manager of resources, superintending over a conglomerate of estates and he is managing them effectively, and he deserves all the support, funding, and latitude to excel in this national assignment of housing infrastructure of the federal government of Nigeria.

The New Managing Director, Hon. Oyetunde Ojo indeed has a huge bouquet of experience to tap from to ensure implementation of aims and objectives of the Authority, which are well encapsulated in the decree (act) establishing it. I am referring to Decree 40 of 1973, now cited as Act CAP F-14, Laws of the Federation of Nigeria, 2004, and it is supervised by the Federal Ministry of Works and Housing.

Beyond the statutory responsibilities of providing shelter for millions of Nigerians in various categories of housing needs, the agency has assumed other roles of development and nation-building; for aside helping to raise structures for shelter across the 36 states of Nigeria and the Federal Capital Territory, such structures have gone ahead to enhance the beauty and esthetics of the nation’s landscape, constructing drainages and planting flowers within the estates. The authority has also become an instrument of unity.

The FHA estates throughout the country accommodate almost every ethnic nationality living there as brothers and sisters without any rancour. When you go to such estates like Festac in Lagos, Gwarimpa in Abuja, Umuahia in Abia, Owerri in Imo State, Ibadan in Oyo State (under construction), and the recently inaugurated 748 house units in Zuba area of Abuja, you would be shocked to witness the level of peace, unity, love, cooperation, networking going on in those estates, nobody talks about Igbo, Yoruba or Hausa, they are all brothers and sister.

Now let us conclude by recalling what the former minister of works and housing, Babatunde Raji Fashola (SAN) stated while rendering account of his stewardship and this was an indirect testament of the good works of the former MD, Senator Gbenga Ashafa, he said “We have 46 sites in 35 states with 6,068 housing units and 2,870 housing units in the FCT.” Fashola added that the ministry issued 1,262 building contracts, while 6,685 Certificate of Occupancy (C of O) were signed from 2015 to March 2023. He also added that the ministry generated a revenue of N13,09 billion within the period.

Over 2,200 housing units were currently being completed in Apo, Abuja, Odukpani in Calabar and Yenagoa in Bayelsa State and Awka, Anambra State, many of them were at their various completion stages.

The authority is also carrying out direct development of 330 units of various house types with complementary infrastructure in six states across the country namely: Gombe – Gombe State, Makurdi – Benue State and Osogbo – Osun State, the construction of the 17-storey headquarters of the Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS) in Abuja which has reached its peak. The N39.2bn project is certainly going to be one of the landmark buildings that will shape and define the skylines of the city of Abuja after its completion. What of the FHA proposed head office site at the Central Business District and the Lugbe extension, they have become a reality now.

Indeed I am calling on the new helmsman, Hon Ojo to ensure that he maintains a closer mutually beneficial relation with the former CEO of the agency for a seamless transition in the FHA and country’s housing development.

Of course, statistics have shown that Nigeria is among the nations of the world that have shown capacity in the provision of shelter for its people. Although efforts geared in this direction appeared not to have ameliorated the wide gap created by population, but the truth remains that the government of Nigeria has put in place commendable and gigantic policy measures to ensure that their citizens have affordable shelter over their heads.

In terms of the generation of jobs, both direct and indirect, the FHA has proved to be a veritable tool for wealth distribution. No less than 1,000 people are employed on each site, apart from the staff of the successful contractors. These sites are an ecosystem of human enterprise, where artisans, vendors, suppliers, and craftsmen converge to partake of opportunities and contribute to nation-building.

It is no longer news that wherever the Authority has a project, the generality of the people in that community also benefit from such project, the economic benefits of projects carried out by his ministry from the contractor/construction company that wins the bid to the labourers on-site who earn N3,000 a day, (N18, 000 a week (for six days) and approximately N72,000 a month); to the owner of the concrete mixer who charges N20,000 a day: to suppliers and vendors of building materials, and employees of companies that manufacture paint, tiles, roofing materials, the Federal Government, and state government collaboration provided a step up towards the ladder of prosperity.