A/HRC/43/43/Add.1 country’s GDP per capita). Instead of catering to the needs of the majority of the population, a large part of housing supply is concentrated in luxury houses. 26 19. Not only is purchasing a home in the private market unaffordable for most Nigerians, there are many other barriers hindering access to rented accommodation: supply is scarce, landlords require tenants to pay one to two years’ rent in advance, discrimination by landlords affects single women, lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender persons, persons living with HIV/AIDS and others, and no effective rent control or caps have been implemented. Landlord-tenant relations are loosely governed and state-level rent control laws and other legislation protecting the rights of tenants are frequently violated. 27 20. Private sector housing developers target upper-income households; middle-, lowerand no-income households depend on government initiatives to build social or affordable housing. However, public efforts in this regard are manifestly insufficient given the evergrowing needs, with the housing deficit increasing by approximately 600,000 units per year.28 On 23 October 2019, the Ministry of Power, Works and Housing announced that its budget would increase from 35 billion Naira (96 million US$) in 2019 to 60 billion Naira (165 million US$) in 2020.29 This will allow for the construction of 2,383 housing units as part of the National Housing Programme in the nation’s 36 states and the capital. This represents less than 0.5 per cent of the actual yearly increase in housing need and around 0.01 per cent of the current total housing deficit of 22 million units. Even when adding the yearly production of 100,000 housing units by private investors (which mostly target the upper-income minority in the country), the deficit will keep growing at a rate of almost half a million homes per year. 21. Another concern is that no government housing programme targets persons with no income or living in homelessness. The housing projects that were presented to the Special Rapporteur were aimed at public sector employees. While providing housing for government workers is commendable, a human rights-based approach to housing policy cannot ignore the needs of those who are unemployed (27 per cent of the population and 37 per cent of youth) 30 or those working in the informal sector (over 60 per cent of the economy).31 22. There is a consensus that the legal framework for land administration, especially the 1978 Land Use Act, is exacerbating the pressures on the housing sector. The Act vests excessive powers in state Governors, making it necessary for landholders to obtain the Governor’s permission to transfer their landholding rights and creating bureaucratic obstacles and delays. Some of the Act’s provisions are also incompatible with international standards: section 28, for example, gives Governors broad powers to grant a right of occupancy, but also to revoke it on the basis of “public purposes”, which include the construction of oil pipelines, mining and the extraction of materials for use in building. The manner in which the Land Use Act has been used and implemented has had severe consequences for the enjoyment of the right to housing. The Special Rapporteur received many reports of Governors abusing their land administration powers, including by granting occupancy rights to family and friends and by defining “public purpose” in such a manner as to result in the forced eviction of impoverished communities in violation of international human rights law, including for luxury developments that often stand vacant. The Act also makes land title registration cumbersome and onerous. 23. It is well established that in Nigeria real estate is used as a convenient place to launder money gained through corrupt practices, to park excess capital and to provide 26 27 28 29 30 31 6 World Bank, Nigeria: Developing Housing Finance (Washington, D.C., 2016), p. 34. Nasir Imam, “Nigeria: ineffective rent control laws in country”, Daily Trust (2 May 2012). http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/278041531299329812/pdf/Concept-Project-InformationDocument-Integrated-Safeguards-Data-Sheet-Nigeria-Affordable-Housing-Project-P165296.pdf. http://africahousingnews.com/2019/10/24/housing-sector-to-get-n60-87-billion-allocation-in-2020budget/. https://tradingeconomics.com/nigeria/unemployment-rate. Vivian Malta and others, “Informality and gender gaps going hand in hand”, IMF Working Paper (May 2019), p. 18.