Hamzat also advised workers to keep their rent expenses below 40% of their income, saying they still have to cater for food, clothing, and other expenses.
By Kehinde Okeowo
Lagos State All Progressives Congress (APC) governorship candidate, Obafemi Hamzat, has suggested how young workers in the state can cope with skyrocketing accommodation rental costs.
The Lagos State Deputy Governor made the recommendation on Thursday, 20 August, on Nigeria Info FM during a question-and-answer session.
While responding to concerns about how a young worker earning ₦100,000 monthly could cope with an annual rent of about ₦1m, the APC chieftain advised them to consider living with their parents or relatives, or sharing accommodation.
According to him, young people should choose accommodation based on their current financial capacity, rather than feeling compelled to immediately rent apartments they cannot comfortably afford.
Hamzat said, “Don’t let us misunderstand ourselves as a people. We are a cultural people. Do you understand? So, if I start work as a young person and I’m not married, a lot of us live with our parents. A lot of us live with our cousins.”
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He further stressed that there was nothing wrong with starting modestly, noting that young workers could move into better accommodation as their income improved.
“So, if you don’t start from the top self-contained, you don’t start from the top. You start from the average depending on your income,” he said.
Hamzat also advised residents to keep their rent expenses below 40 per cent of their income, pointing out that workers still had to cater for food, clothing, and transportation.
“In fact, if you spend more than 40 per cent of your income on rent, it is too high because you must eat, you must buy clothes, and you must cover transportation,” the deputy governor said.
Hamzat further advocated mortgage financing as a more sustainable route to home ownership, arguing that Nigerians should move away from the practice of paying the full cost of a house all at once.
“We cannot continue to buy houses the way we buy rice and yam,” he said, adding that Lagos had a mortgage board to help residents access housing finance.
He explained that the Lagos State Residents Registration Agency number was also useful in establishing residents’ identities, addresses, and places of work when assessing their ability to repay housing loans.
