Mixta Africa has canvassed a housing delivery system to tackle Nigeria’s widening deficit at scale, arguing that housing interventions must shift to building the delivery system.
The company, which opened for business over 20 years ago, is a leading pan-African real estate developer with over 30,000 home units delivered across Nigeria, Senegal, Tunisia, Morocco and Côte d’Ivoire.
Tola Akinsulire, its Group Chief Commercial Officer, lamented recently that Nigeria has treated housing as isolated interventions focused on mortgages, without addressing the underlying delivery ecosystem.
‘What has worked elsewhere is a system that addresses both the supply and demand sides. In Morocco, we delivered 4,393 units on a single site because the government created that system,’ he said.
Tola spoke at the Africa PropTech Priority Summit (APPSUMMIT 2026) organised by Proptech Roundup with the theme, ‘Public-Private Partnerships for Large-Scale Housing Delivery: Unlocking Housing at Scale Through Collaboration.’
He recalled that in 2010, under Morocco’s housing programme, participating developers who committed to building at 250,000 Dirhams and meeting a target of 500 units in five years were offered tax credits across the value chain, including cement and company income tax.
‘On the demand side, buyers of qualifying homes were exempted from VAT and supported by a government-backed guarantee scheme that covered up to 70 percent of the lender’s credit risk that kicks in after default. That made banks willing to lend and buyers able to buy. That is how you create a market – engineered on both the supply and demand sides,’ Akinsulire explained.
On PPPs in Nigeria, Akinsulire said governments must be clear if a PPP is a monetisation or intervention strategy, noting: ‘if it is primarily a monetisation strategy, the private developer will ordinarily be expected to bear more of the commercial risk.
But if it is an intervention intended to deliver affordable housing for civil servants, for example, government must be prepared to absorb some of the cost – through infrastructure, land or other support – and agree on a realistic price point’
He stressed that for PPPs to deliver at scale, three things are critical: trust, buyer affordability, and developer capability. ‘The Federal Ministry of Housing’s Housing Delivery Framework in January and its subsequent policy framework later in the year address trust and affordability, but we are not addressing how to enhance developer delivery capacity. If people have money and there are no houses to buy, we still have the same problem,’ he said.
Akinsulire welcomed innovators into the real estate value chain, affirming that: ‘Technology must either reduce friction or reduce risk, from land titling, to approvals, construction monitoring, sales and off-plan finance.
Olajumoke Akinwunmi of Alitheia Capital highlighted lack of structured engagement, framework and trust as the biggest missing links in PPPs. ‘We need collaboration among ourselves and ready projects, not just land banks.
Often, after the handshake, you get to site and still deal with Omo Onile, compensation, and unbuildable portions. That is not a ready project. We also need transparent procurement and to build a local industrial base.
We are dealing with a housing challenge affecting roughly 30 million units – comprising a deficit of about 15 million homes and more than 15 million existing homes that are structurally inadequate or substandard,’ she said.
Odunayo Ojo, UPDC’s CEO, described housing as fundamentally an economics problem: rising government rates, low-income levels and the need for incentives. ‘Rates and charges have tripled this year, yet we say we want cheaper housing.
We need tax breaks and pioneer status incentives for housing like other industries. In the interim, we must encourage build-to-rent because many Nigerians cannot afford to buy, even on zero-interest mortgages, due to low incomes. And we must collaborate to cut overheads,’ he advised.