June 2014 Vol.2 No.3

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Original Research Article

Laterite building material and sustainable housing production in Nigeria

Odunjo Oluronke Omolola

Department of Architecture, Ladoke Akintola University of Technology, Ogbomoso, Nigeria

E-mail: stevomary2012@gmail.com

Accepted June 09, 2014

Abstract

Public Housing provision in Nigeria has not yielded much. This arises because of high cost of provision due to utilization of conventional building materials and the disregard for Alternative Avenue of housing provision which make sustainable housing development a mirage in the country. However, it is believed that if importation of expensive construction materials could be substantially reduced using locally available alternatives such as Laterite that are based on appropriate construction technology, such a measure can reduce cost of construction, increase housing stock and also increase foreign reserve of the economy of the country. It is against this background that the paper makes a case for the incorporation of the building material into Housing policies in Nigeria. It therefore, assesses the willingness of people to utilize the material for housing construction using Ogbomoso as a case study. Multistage random sampling was used in selecting 216 respondents from the two local government areas in the town while the questionnaire forms the basic instrument for data collection. The data collected were analyzed using Frequency counts, Percentage and Chi-square. The paper found out that the knowledge of people concerning the material is high and that people are willing to utilize the material. However, the limiting factors of utilization are non-incorporation in the National Housing Policy by the government, Gender, Level of Education and Society status as these are all significant at 0.05levelof significance. The paper concludes based on the findings above that in order to achieve sustainable housing provision in Nigeria, the material should be incorporated into housing policies and programs which should not be at the exclusive preserve of Federal Government and at the exclusion of State and Local governments.

Keywords: Public housing provision, Conventional building material, Laterite, incorporation, Sustainable housing provision