 The number, because the PVC collection has not gone round, they haven't said that the people who have collected the PVCs are 93 million, they said the people who are on the register that could vote are 93 million. So which means more than half of Nigerians will not vote and even that same number could be reduced if we do not do something really, really seriously to get our PVCs and go on election day and vote. So that if you do not vote, you are also voting because anybody who wins will win because you did not vote as well because if someone else could have won and you didn't go to vote, it meant that you have given your vote without consciously doing so to the person who won. So take it the way you see it, anything where you see, take out like that, that's how we say on the streets anyway. Well I'll guess for today, I refrained from calling his name because if I called his name before you saying him, you would have been expecting maybe speaking in tongues throughout. His name is Toby Adeboyeka, he's not a preacher, but he, well I don't know if you, as a part-time job you do that, but today he's here as the CEO of a co-shortlet because we're talking housing deficit in Nigeria. Thank you very much. Hello, how are you doing? I'm fine. Or are you related? So I am Toby Adeboyeka, not Pastor Toby Adeboyeka. I still have people in my DMs that are like, who, Pastor Pastor Toby? I'm like, yo, I am not Pastor Toby. You should be collecting types. I would say just one of those rare coincidences that would be the same name, the same son name and all, but I'm not Pastor Toby. Okay, well at least you shared the good news. Well this is Toby Adeboyeka, who is not a pastor. And today we're talking about housing deficit in Nigeria. And Nigeria with all the resources, with all the land, with everything that we have, a lot of people are wondering, we always wonder why, what is the challenge? Why is housing in the 21st century still a problem in Nigeria? So for me, Lagos as a case study, I would say the problem lies a lot with the government. Of course, we all know that what makes a location very good to serve for real estate has to do with accessibility. I'm going to use the Lakey Equine Expressway for example. Immediately that road was fixed, we saw a lot of people going to the access. And that being said, the level of development has aided the price to skyrockets. I mean, how many people in Lagos can afford to pay a six million euro for a three bedroom apartment for instance? It goes to say, the government can do a lot more in terms of partnership with developers and in terms of making availability for people for the average Lagosian. Back then, I said earlier, back then you had estates like the Jack on Day estates, where everybody could afford Jack on Day estates. Now Jack on Day estates in the solar right now is still standing. Jack on Day estates in the Jack on Day right now is still standing. Whereas that was a government who was ready to provide housing solution. If you look at what the government is doing now, it is somewhat impossible for the average Lagosian to afford those kind of real estate that's coming up in the bucket right now. Yeah, the ones that are coming up mostly from the private sector. Of course. But even when the government builds, maybe at least at the national level, they put it up for sale to bidders who can afford millions of kind of low-cost and you can't even afford it. So it's such an irony because you say you're doing low-cost housing estate and you find out that some guys who's the head of the parter town has taken ten of the house already or someone has taken five of those already or the guys who are at the top of the government of the organization, they've taken most of those properties. They're leaving nothing to the guys down below because they can even afford those houses. So if we're saying it's a low-cost housing, then leave it as a low-cost housing. If we're saying it will be one you can pay, maybe 100,000 monthly or 100,000 quarterly, then leave it at that. But don't tell us it's a low-cost housing estate and you're expecting someone to pay 35, 40 million. How is that going to work? Now, what is the thing in real estate that really takes the money, what is it about building a house that is so expensive? So everyone would always tell you, dollar has gone up. Even those who don't use dollars when you think that dollar has gone up. We all know that what the bag of cement was five years ago, you know what it is right now, and I'll tell you this for a fact, it won't be the same price in three years' time. So because of all of these changes in the raw materials, of course prices of real estate is going to go up. Now, access to funding. A lot of developers who have gone to work will tell you that it's one where even if they're taking funding from the bank, the kind of profit, the kind of margin they have to pay, it's quite a lot. Or you're taking money from a macrofinance back or something. So you find that when you take that money to build, you have a limited period of time to pay back because the longer you don't pay, the longer you keep the money, the more profit you have to pay, or the more percentage you have to pay. So that's why the prices would be up definitely because the guy has source for funding from somewhere else where he has to pay, pass it to him maybe on a monthly basis. So he just wants to build, sell, get his cash and leave the table. But that's the private sector. When we're talking about government, do they have the same challenges? I'm wondering why sometimes we know that land in Nigeria basically land belongs to the government. So they don't have to be as much as a private person has to do. So what are those ingredients for this? For me, I would say in government, the major problem would be the style of leadership, would be the leader. I mean, you go to that part of the world, you see where the government is building a lot of estates, say, locals, the UK for instance, you have what you call council houses. That's one where the council has acquired the house and are giving it to people to pay on a monthly basis, something very little. It goes to say the leaders we have. I mean, if you're a leader who has the interest of people at heart, the land is there for you. This finances is there for you. You're not going to take them from a new body. So what will you call us to say, we will build this place and give it to our people to pay for it for the next 30, 40 years, however long it takes them. So again, it would boil down to the leadership style or the kind of leaders we have governed us in Nigeria. Okay. Major reason we're talking about this today is that soon we'll have a change of leadership. Of course. Even if it's the same person being elected back into office, that's a second tenor. Maybe the policies will change and all that. What are some of these policies that government needs to look into so that they themselves, I'm talking about the government, can provide this housing for the people and then the private developers can also have the opportunity to do things for cheaper. So I would say, first and foremost, there has to be access to funding for the developers. Also, mortgage for the end users. You can count number of mortgage banks you have in Nigeria. And even if you go on the mortgage bank, you know the kind of documents, you know the rudiments for you to get a property from the mortgage bank. It's not a walk in the park, basically. So access to funding, having a good mortgage system. And I feel the government, the Ministry of Housing or whatever, whether at the federal level or state level, can do a lot more with ensuring these houses are available and also not just available, accessible to those who they've built those things for and not the guys at the top. So if there's a functional government, if there's a government who has the interests of the people at heart to say, we're putting attention to housing. They were putting attention to petrol, to other things. They were putting attention to housing. And I think it would solve a lot of these housing issues we have in Nigeria right now. Okay, that's government. Now let's look at the partnership between government and private sector. I'm interested in that because a lot of times they say private partnership with the government will lead to a lot of good for us. So tell us how this can work. So for the private... So has there been a relationship like that for now? Okay. There has been. So for instance, in Lagos state, you have what you call the LSDPC housing estate and it's done in partnership with the private sector. So there are the ones who kind of build this apartment for government. And we find that, of course, it goes down to the main point of funding. I mean, in most of those cases, the government can only say this is the land. So it's once called a JV, joint venture. So the government is saying this is the land and now you have to source for funding. Getting money from government for anything can be a bit difficult. But for the land, yes, this is the land. But you as a developer, how are you going to build a land? You need to source for your funding. Anyway, you're going to source for your funding. So until that old finance ethic is a bit streamlined, I think we'll still be running the same cycle over and over again. Today that we have here in the studio, a lot of negotiations are complaining that because of developers, rents are going up. You could rent a house today. Tomorrow it has been sold to a developer or given out to a developer. I don't know whether you buy it or you take it and use for some time. I don't know how it works. But because of that, every street, so long as it has a gate, it has become an estate. So what are you really doing to make sure that the people do not have to complain anymore? Or is it business, business you don't care what happens to the people? Do you have any plans to make sure that these things will also help the ordinary man who cannot afford a five million Naira per month house? Um, so, um, like I said, a lot of these challenges really would have to do with source of funding. So for instance now, I want to build a block of flats of 30 units and it's going to cost me 10 billion to build. Now I've gotten a 10 billion Naira loan from wherever I've gotten it from and I have two years to pay back. Yeah. I would be more of the business side than the humanitarian side. Because I know I have I have something to meet. I have a point to get to pay someone's money. So as far as it would be concerned, I would say it would always be more of the business side, sadly. To make it more of the humanitarian side, it has to do with a lot of government interference. We cannot over-emphasize how much government has to be involved in these things. For an average private sector person, it's our profitability. We have our CSR, we have our charities of that, but in terms of our core business, it's profit. It's what just want to make our profit and leave the table. So it would always be about the business. We would say there we come. It would always be about the business, sadly. And again, I said this, yeah. Real estate to leagals is quite pricey. Is it peculiar to leagals? I think it's peculiar to leagals. So for instance, you can't get a land of 5,000,000 to go to there anymore. You can't. You can't even get a land of 5,000,000 in Lakuea anymore. You have to be going far. You have to be approaching Epe. Now, why you would get that is because there's dangote refinery coming to the Bejuliki, there's a new port coming to Bejuliki. So all of these are in works. So therefore, it has kind of increased the cost of real estate in the axis because there's a lot coming into the axis. So the average man now has to go as far as Epe or almost Auguste Tejebu to buy a land of 5,000,000. Interesting. So I was thinking, you were going to tell us from this time to this time things are going to get better now. We are going to Auguste. No. When we go back to the village, we are all leagals. The truth is, not to scare people but it will always get worse in terms of pricing in this sense. Even with government's intervention? Because you've outlined some of the things that you feel government should do. What if government really looks into it and some of the other things that you want them to do? If government looks into it deeply I mean not just on the surface look into it, maybe create a committee or create a department for that. There's something that can be done. We regulate the developers, the government who gives the developers the licenses and all of that is not to be done. The government. So everything is basically with the government, it's in their hands. So if the government is able to regulate, if the government is able to say we would make your implementation process seamless but you cannot sell beyond this and this in this axis we can't because there's a law that you can't go beyond this. So unless the government is heavily involved then you just keep getting worse. But are you saying that all the agencies involved in these are not doing enough or that they are short-staffed or I don't even understand because they have Ministry of Lands, housing all those kinds of things are they not enough? I remind that the average Ministry is there to generate money. So there's a part of generating money, there's a part of where we are having the interests of people at heart. Now you see these guys, legal states, whatever, tax and law, once they come to property, the first thing first they're putting the X sign. So once that comes to your property you have to go to a lausa, once you go to a lausa, money must exchange hands. Legally or illegally. We need to. Anyhow you want to say it, legally because for that to have happened there's something there's an oversight of something with the developer but then again, money is exchanging hands. Now for every cobble a developer puts erecting the property it's going to go into the cost of the property and therefore it's going to affect the price of that property. So do we have some short-term solutions where things that can just give us some respite and say okay, we are here now but when we take this solution we can at least get some solace. So I would say we need to do a lot more with mortgage banks we want to do a lot more with mortgage banks where you're able to take, without too much stress, you can take a mortgage for 30, 40 years and you know the house is yours because sincerely if you are renting an apartment in Lekifizwan right now or Ikate you're looking at 6 million yen per year. Now imagine you're putting that same 6 million yen into your house mortgage in 30 years, how much would you have paid that's enough for you to acquire the property already. Okay. Let's just put a stop here for now and it never lost to take the news and when we return we'll just say something about because you, it's not just real estate, this is something called short-life. Short-life, yes. When I was talking to a colleague about this short-life they say, ah those people they do short-time so that we we get to know what it is, maybe these are some of the things that we can take advantage of of all that. Of course, of course. Still the run up and I'm still here with Toby Adeboyega, or might I add Toby Misson Adeboyega so that there will be that uh difference. Yeah, you don't have to start saying Tanterabarobosso We're just having fun here but it's not so much fun if we are talking about real estate because Lagos is reputed to have like maybe 10 percent of the population of Nigeria resident here and more are still coming in cars, in trains and in trucks people who have never been to Lagos every day people enter Lagos in thousands and they're not ready to go out it's like bringing fairly used cars cars never come here and go out again Second hand clothing don't come here and go out again and that's how Lagos is so it's scary if all these people come in and they don't have where to lay their head like I was saying in my opening sometimes when you're on the mainland you're passing very early in the morning you see people sleeping on the bridges and under the bridge the foot bridge especially now you come to the island where it's supposed to be like a posh area you see people sleeping on the curbs it's not even they don't have a bridge to sleep on that they just sleep by the roadside even if it's raining and housing has become a worrisome thing it's been there for a long time but we were thinking if the new government is coming what can they do to make sure housing is available for everybody we've talked extensively about some of those things that policies that they need to put in place before we end I'd like you to still go back for purpose of emphasis rather but for now let's try to know the types of real estate that you have first of all we talked about the one that you are involved in your CEO of a co-shotlet like I said in a funny way people say a short life so explain to us these various types of real estate that you do we have the shortlets, we have the rental we have the sales I'll start with the sales so the sales is normal you want to buy property and all of that either for investment purpose or for living purpose then you have the rental you rent for a year or three years and just back to what we were saying with the housing challenges in Lagos the Lagos state law you take more than one year you rent you have some landlords say to you I want three years and its statement would be the Lagos state government build my house for me and of course he's right the government didn't build the house for him he built it by himself so he's able to determine what he wants to do so then you have the shortlets which is what we are I'll call so it's like your regular Airbnb so what we do basically we take up these properties we put them on daily rental more like a hotel kind of system but in an apartment way so many, you know like a hotel it's just a single room and all of that but yeah you have maybe two rooms, three rooms you have a kitchen so it's like a home view from home basically what we started to say a home better than your own home in most cases so basically that's it he has put on his marketing cap but now that makes it more scary because if you're renting a house for a year even if you have to pay for two years it will be more cost effective it will be cheaper than just paying for a short time so like I said earlier there are two sides there's humanitarian, there's business now for shortlets for the shortlet investor for the shortlet management company we're happy doing our shortlets but to the end user he's not totally happy with it because he wants like a long stay kind of thing but for us we want the daily coming three days you leave someone that comes in five days leave someone that comes in one month leave someone that comes in Lagos and you have to stay for three months it's very easy to have because most or not most all of these apartments they come with them of course beautifully furnished interior designing electricity water internet all you're doing is just to come with your bags that's all there's even a cleaner in some cases we have a chef if you want to prepare your meals for you okay now let's drive it home now if the government will say okay we want to take up some of these things and do them for the benefit of our people what kind of it do you think they can do easily and make life easy for the people you've mentioned sales you've mentioned shortlet you've mentioned rentals so which of these ones do you think the government can comfortably do so I would say the government can come in all aspects on the level of the end user so for instance someone who is maybe the government level 10, level 12 can afford to say I want to do the buy where I have 30 years in service so between now and when I finish my service I should be done paying up for this apartment or you have one where the government which are mudgages actually where the government says because in Lagos it is hard to find a property that you can rent for just 2 or 3 months so for instance I'm coming from a budget in Lagos for a conference for 10 days I can't find an empty property to rent for 10 days now because if you rent an empty property you don't have to start thinking about to furnish it you're not going to sit on the bare floor so that is where we're coming with the shortlet okay forget about trying to get an empty space coming to this already made up space for you just come with your bags and then you flow in where you have people stay on the short-term basis all that challenge I see is I've seen a lot of people who maybe live in the Corrado and then they have to work in Leckick for instance now we all know transportation in Lagos can be a lot of bottleneck so they look for a place to just put their heads for like Monday to Friday and then go back home by the weekend so the government can have little little condos like that like studio apartment, condos, warm bedrooms just it could be like a whole block of flat and then just have it where people can pay on the daily basis something very affordable for anyone to be able to afford the government can come in that also when you're talking government you say affordable how affordable is the private ones? for private in ranges the least you will find is about 35,000 per day and the most expensive we have on our platform is about 250,000 per day okay that's no service for the average Nigerian but all hope is not lost is it? some people say there's no longer space to build so anywhere that building will be put up in Lagos state you have to break another one to do that so again it depends on what part of Lagos everybody wants to come to the island I mean we'll get to the stage where most people we'll come to the stage where the island itself might be a state of its own because a lot of people if you look at it really out of 10 friends living on the island maybe only one or two was born and bred on the island a lot of them came in from the mainland into the island so we'll get to the stage now where the shortlet is really taking over rental in Lagos so I was doing an example here some developers would build an apartment and then 10 block of flats and out of the 10 about 9 of them are shortlets so where's the one for someone to rent on a normal yearly basis you can't find that anymore and it would keep getting worse of course we'll like it because we'll make money from it but then again we cannot take away the humanitarian aspect where people need to find places to live okay the question I'm going to ask you now is what you have been seeing throughout this time that we've been talking let's assume that you just have a one on one with an incoming governor or a sitting governor what will be your advice because Lagos really needs housing what will be your direct advice to this person if he gives you a listening ear for me 3.1 make housing a core of your governance I mean make it create a low cost housing department of low cost housing create like let that be that entity that attention is fully on solving the problem of housing in Lagos state 2. make funding accessible also I would say the old process of documentation for building and all of that you can make it seamless I've had people say they've tried to get their C of O for like 2-3 years I know it could be a very rigorous process to get all of these documents from Lagos state make those available and the fourth and major will be give the people mortgages let people be able to say I'm not paying this money for my rent I'm paying this money into a mortgage and at the end of 30 years this house belongs to me okay well we've been talking with Toby at the Boyega he's into real estate and what he does is a chief executive officer of a co-shortlet and we've been talking housing because the more the population grows the more the need for people to have a place to lay their head and Lagos that has 10% of the entire population of Nigeria should be thinking more about housing so whoever is coming in as the next governor of Lagos state come May 29th should have this according to Toby should have this at the very four of his administration housing for the people because someone who doesn't have a house will have to survive like a street person and sometimes is detrimental to the society well we'd like to say thank you to you Toby for coming to the show it's very enlightening we'll be looking for plots in Ogun state I hope that never comes to happen anyway so wherever you are the thing that you can do as well is to make sure that you get your PVC let's vote in the right people who will take the right decisions to make life a little bit easier for all of us your PVCs will be at the world level till the 15th of this month so we're hoping that you get there and get your PVCs after that it might have to go back to the local government headquarters of INEC so that you can go get it there so I'm going there to get your PVC so make effort the remaining four days to the return of those PVCs to go get them so that you can be eligible to vote in 2023 that we've been talking all about and we also appeal to INEC you said that the collection of PVC will end on the 22nd or thereabout of January why not just leave these PVCs still at the world level until the end of the collection date I don't know why you didn't extend it to 25th because the election is 25th of February to make it just one month to election day however maybe you have your own challenges whatever challenges you might have maybe you can still extend the day or the time for these PVCs to be at the world level so that people can collect it it's been a wonderful run with you today and we're hoping that we are going to in the meantime remember be a responsible Nigerian be patriotic and do your bid and live the rest of God my name is Nyam Gul Agadji see you tomorrow