The focus of this paper is the provision of low-cost housing in Nigeria. The paper notes the incidence of high magnitude of housing needs in Nigeria, which is symptomatic of severe shortages in adequate housing. The vast majority of Nigerians belong to the low-income group, and these generally lack the wherewithal to make effective demand of available housing stock. Adequate housing is often priced out of their economic reach, which makes the provision of low-cost housing imperative. The paper affirms that public sector intervention in this regard has been largely unsuccessful. It asserts that for low-cost housing to be sustainable it requires a bottom-up, participatory approach. This, it posits, should involve local housing cooperatives and associations, local government councils, and rural communities. This will ensure a proper definition of the real needs of the target group while inculcating cultural traditions and local distinctiveness in the housing programmes.

Housing is the environment in which man lives and grows. It is an essential need of man without which his very existence is not feasible, which is why it is described as a sine qua non of human living (Yakubu, 1980). Housing provision is one of the major challenges facing developing countries. The problem is more acute in the urban areas as there is a high rate of urbanization occurring in these countries. The high rate of population explosion, continuous influx of people from the rural to the urban centres coupled with lack of basic infrastructure required for good standard of living have compounded housing problems over the years. The urban centres in Nigeria are facing the problem of acute shortage of affordable accommodation, and rapid deterioration of existing housing stock and living conditions. The provision of housing does not really match the growth of the population in most urban centres; which accounts for the monumental deficiency in urban housing quantitatively and qualitatively (Jagun, 1983, Olotuah 2000; 2002a). Housing needs are not matched by effective demand since the large majority of the populace does not have the wherewithal for adequate housing. This segment of the urban population is indeed poor, and is constrained to limited, insufficient, crowded, cold and dirty shelter (Galbraith, 1969). Access to housing by the poor who constitute the largest percentage of the population has thus remained intractable.