The first set of successful allottees of the Lagos Home Ownership Mortgage Scheme were on Monday presented with keys to their various homes by Governor Babatunde Fashola (SAN), who asserted that the success of the first draw is a strong message to the present generation that all is not lost as a better Nigeria can be built.
The governor, who spoke at the Conference Room of the Lagos House, Ikeja, expressed the hope that the number of applicants would continue to increase month after month and described the first exercise as the beginning of a journey of promise.
Fashola said: “I am happy to see very young people who have become homeowners in their country and in our state and in a place where young people are struggling.
“Go and apply, pay your taxes, register as a Lagos resident and the rest is easy.”
He described the first draw as a modest start, with 31 successful applicants from 200 homes at the first draw, while the remaining 169 would be added to the 200 homes at the second draw, which is billed for Friday.
Fashola, who also reacted to the vote of assurance given by one of the successful allotees, Amos Kimeh Omodunni, stated that even if Omodunni is the only successful allotee, the efforts of the State Government and the Mortgage Board would have been worth it.
He also recalled happenings during the several meetings of the Lagos Homes Committee where there were several arguments, cancellations, many false starts and corrections but a firm commitment of the members that the mortgage scheme must be an easy to use system.
Speaking earlier, the Chairman of the Lagos Mortgage Board and Commissioner for Finance, Ayo Gbeleyi, described the event as another promise made and kept by the administration of Fashola.
Gbeleyi added that out of the 31 winners that emerged at the first draw, 11, who have fully completed the requirements and have also achieved closure on their mortgage facilities, are being handed their keys.
Gbeleyi said it is no coincidence that at the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development Countries, over 60 per cent of home owners actually own their homes under a mortgage scheme.
He added that while in the United States, it is over 80 per cent, in South Africa it is about 30 per cent of homes that are owned by owners and even in Rwanda that is just coming out of war, amazingly it is 15 per cent but in Nigeria, that figure is well under five per cent and reiterated that the present effort is aimed at taking more people out of poverty line and bringing them up into economic prosperity.
In a vote of assurance, one of the successful allottees, Omodunni said after he came across the scheme on one of the social media sites, where the photographs of one of the schemes was uploaded when the governor visited there, he did not expect it to be as seamless and as easy as it turned out to be.
He said: “Everything worked just like clock.
“I did not have to visit any office or talk to anyone.
“Everything that I needed to do to complete that application was done just in my office and I did not have to move anywhere.”
Omodunni explained that he was in his office when the televised draw was being held and he had to run to one of the adjoining offices to watch the event and that when his name was picked for a three bedroom flat, he was very happy and excited.
He said though he had always had his reservations about the system, the present Mortgage Scheme has reinvigorated him and his fellow winners on the efficacy and efficiency of the Lagos State Government.
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