A real estate expert, Festus Adebayo, has advised the federal government to invest the unclaimed dividends in the Pension Fund in the housing se

Adebayo believes that investing in the real estate sector would reduce Nigeria’s unemployment rate by fifty percent.

Addressing journalists in Abuja, the legal practitioner and coordinator of the Abuja Housing Show noted that the real estate sector could improve Nigeria’s economic fortunes if given the needed attention.

“If government can focus on the housing sector, unemployment rate in Nigeria will go down by at least fifty per cent,” Adebayo announced.

"We have been hearing of it diverted, if those monies were put in housing, we call them idle funds, there are unclaimed dividends, in that account that it is kept, who is benefiting from it. They should look into the unclaimed dividends and use it for housing.

“On every housing estate that you see there are different category of workers that you see; the professional, architect, engineers land surveyors are all there. You will also need the artisans like the carpenter. You will even see somebody that is riding okada. You will also see the women selling food for the workers. Then when you look at the effect of housing on the economy, you will also discover that the effect is multiplying.

“What we are saying here is that housing is the new way to gear up Nigeria’s economy. In the last three years that Buhari government came I can tell you that housing has not witnessed so much increase in terms of performance.

“The kind of attention we are saying is that there are laws in the National Assembly that are waiting for attention. If these laws are not passed like the Land Use Act which is still in the hands of the National Assembly, how do we work on these laws so that the problem of access to land, problem of mortgage can be addressed? Once we don’t address the issue of land, we can never witness an effective mortgage system in Nigeria,” he added.