CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
Housing is paramount to human existence as it ranks among the top three needs of man. Its provision has always been of great necessity to man.
        As a unit of the environment housing has profound influence on the health, efficiency, social behaviour, satisfaction and general welfare of the community. It is a reflection of the cultural, social and economic values of a society and one of the best historical evidences of the civilization of a country (Olotuah, 2000).
        The provision of adequate housing in any country is very vital as housing is a stimulant of the national economy. Housing is a set of durable assets, which accounts for a high proportion of a country’s wealth and on which households spend a substantial part of their income. It is for these reasons that housing has become a regular feature in economic, social and political debates often with highly charged emotional contents (Agbola, 1998).
        In Nigeria, like in many other developing nations of the world housing problems are multi dimensional. The problems of population explosion, continuous influx of people from the rural to the urban centres, and the lack of basic infrastructure required for good standard of living have compounded housing problems over the years. Access to this basic need by the poor who constitute the largest percentage of the world population has remained a mirage and it needs to be critically addressed. Ogieto (1987) has observed that the disparity between the price and quantity of housing on the one hand, and the number of households and the money available to them to pay these prices on the other, constitutes the central problem of housing. The cost at which houses reach the market goes a long way to determine affordability. Where the unit cost of houses is abnormally high only a few people are able to afford the houses. According to Okupe and Windapo (2000) the gap between income and shelter cost in Nigeria is very wide.