REMCAN Communications Office · June 2026 ·
The Federal Government has officially declared that conventional mortgage systems alone can no longer solve Nigeria's housing crisis. That statement made at the 2026 Cooperative Housing Summit Africa in Abuja is more significant than it sounds. It is the government publicly admitting what millions of Nigerians already know from lived experience: the old system was not built for them.
What comes next could change everything. Or it could be another promise. REMCAN breaks it down.
What Is Actually Being Announced
The Federal Government, through the Minister of State for Cooperative Affairs Senator Aliyu Sabi Abdullahi, revealed plans to establish a Cooperative Bank of Nigeria designed to provide accessible financing for cooperative housing schemes, mortgages, infrastructure development, and community projects. The proposed bank would operate under a cooperative ownership structure and focus specifically on underserved Nigerians, especially workers in the informal sector.
This is part of a broader initiative called the Renewed Hope Cooperative Reform and Revamp Programme (RH-CRRP) the government's strategy to reposition cooperative societies as the primary vehicle for affordable housing delivery in Nigeria.
The government has also committed to digitising cooperative operations nationwide to improve transparency, financial management, credit access, and investor confidence with digital finance platforms set to simplify mortgage repayment, housing project monitoring, and cooperative member verification.
Why This Is a Big Deal
Nigeria's housing deficit stands at over 28 million units. The reason it has persisted for decades despite government intervention after government intervention is simple: every previous solution was designed for formal sector workers with steady salaries, payslips, and bank records.
That describes a minority of Nigerians.
The majority the market traders, artisans, transport workers, farmers, and small business owners who make up the backbone of this country have never had a realistic pathway to homeownership. No payslip means no mortgage. No mortgage means no home.
The cooperative model solves this differently. Through cooperative housing systems, people pool resources, reduce costs, improve bargaining power, access financing collectively, and create sustainable pathways to home ownership without needing to walk into a bank alone and qualify for a loan they were never going to get.
Countries like Germany, Sweden, and Singapore have built entire middle-class housing ecosystems on cooperative foundations. The model works. The question is whether Nigeria can implement it at scale.
Who Qualifies
The initiative will focus mainly on underserved and low-income Nigerians struggling with access to housing and mortgage financing particularly workers in the informal sector. This is the most important line in the entire announcement. For the first time, a major federal housing initiative is being explicitly designed around the people the old system excluded.
If you are a market trader in Onitsha, a mechanic in Kano, a hairdresser in Lagos, or a smallholder farmer in Benue this programme is, in principle, meant for you.
The Honest Caution
REMCAN welcomes this announcement. But we also have a responsibility to be honest with our members and the Nigerian public.
Plans are not policy. Proposals are not programmes. Nigeria has a history of housing initiatives announced with great fanfare that quietly disappear before a single foundation is poured.
Stakeholders at the summit called for a "Public-Private-People Partnership" approach insisting that affordable housing delivery must directly involve intended homeowners in housing projects, not just government and developers talking to each other. REMCAN agrees completely. Real estate professionals the agents, marketers, and consultants on the ground in every city and state must be part of this conversation from the beginning, not brought in at the end to sell units the community had no voice in designing.
We are also watching closely for details on the Cooperative Bank's governance structure, capitalisation, and regulatory framework. A bank built on cooperative principles but run with the opacity of a government ministry will not deliver the transparency this sector desperately needs.
What REMCAN Is Calling For
As the Cooperative Bank of Nigeria moves from announcement to reality, REMCAN makes the following call:
Include verified real estate professionals in the delivery chain. The cooperative bank will need trained, accountable agents to connect housing schemes with the communities they serve. REMCAN's verified members are ready to play that role.
Build verification into the system from day one. Digital finance platforms must include cooperative member verification and by extension, verification of the real estate professionals facilitating transactions. Identity is the foundation of trust, and trust is the foundation of any financial system that works.
Make timelines public. Nigerians deserve to know when this bank will be operational, how to join a cooperative, and what documentation they will need. Vagueness creates space for fraudsters to fill the gap with fake cooperative schemes before the real one launches.
The Bottom Line
The Federal Government's Cooperative Bank announcement is the most structurally promising housing policy Nigeria has seen in years. If executed properly with digital infrastructure, professional accountability, and genuine inclusion of informal sector workers it could begin to move the needle on a crisis that has defeated every previous intervention.
REMCAN will be watching. We will be advocating. And we will keep our members and the Nigerian public informed every step of the way.
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Real Estate Marketers and Consultants Association of Nigeria (REMCAN).