There was a time in Nigeria when owning a modest home was not extravagant. A civil servant back then could build a house gradually, and even a trader could buy land on the outskirts and develop it over time. This does not mean that it was easy, but it was definitely possible.

Today, that ladder has been pulled up.

Legal practitioner and estate surveyor Olusola Enitan appeared on TVC’s Breakfast and was very blunt. He said most Nigerians have been “prohibited” from homeownership. That might have sounded dramatic, but it was also accurate.

Consider the entry point. In parts of Lekki, a two-bedroom flat can command rent of ₦9 million a year. That figure alone tells you that something deeper is wrong. But rent is only the symptom. Ownership is where the exclusion becomes formal.

The most basic houses in the formal market now start at about ₦15 million. In a country where fewer than one percent of workers earn between ₦3 million and ₦4 million monthly, that number is not just high. It is alien.

The mathematics of mortgage finance makes the situation worse. At current interest rates, servicing a ₦15 million property can require monthly payments approaching ₦1 million, much of it swallowed by interest. That level of repayment assumes an income bracket that effectively does not exist for 99 percent of Nigerians.

This is not a story about greedy landlords, but about a financial system that does not recognise the income realities of its own citizens.

Nigeria’s mortgage penetration remains below one per cent of GDP, compared with far higher levels in more functional housing markets. Long-term credit is scarce. Interest rates are punishing. Land titling remains bureaucratic and expensive. Developers borrow at commercial rates and pass the burden forward. Each link in the chain raises the price. At the end of it all stands the ordinary Nigerian, priced out before negotiations even begin.

Meanwhile, the cities are swelling. Lagos is expanding at roughly 3.7 percent annually. Abuja grows even faster, at about 4.4 percent. Young Nigerians continue to migrate in search of work, education and survival. The demand is obvious. Yet Lagos State’s housing start plan is around 15,000 units. Estimates put the national housing deficit in the millions, with a monthly shortfall running into hundreds of thousands of units.

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What makes this moment especially significant is its generational dimension. Many Nigerians in their 50s and 60s built homes on salaries that would now barely cover rent in the same neighbourhoods. Their children, armed with degrees and digital skills, find themselves unable to replicate what their parents achieved without extraordinary income or family backing.

Property in Nigeria has long been more than shelter, It is security, status, and retirement planning in a country with weak social safety nets. 

And yet, public conversation often reduces the crisis to sentiment. They say landlords are wicked, developers are exploitative, or tenants are entitled. These arguments miss the point. The real issue is that Nigeria has constructed an urban economy where formal housing is designed around incomes that the overwhelming majority do not earn.

Until long-term, low-cost mortgage finance becomes available at scale, until land administration is simplified, and until housing supply matches population growth, homeownership will remain aspirational theatre.

The deeper question is not whether Nigerians want to own homes. They do. The question is whether the system is built to allow them to.

Meiza Nigeria