Mud, locally sourced timber and bamboo have been identified as practical, low‑cost alternatives to expensive, largely imported building materials that could help close Nigeria’s housing gap, that is according to a panel of experts who spoke at the Sustainable Building Conference 2025 last week.
Sanmi Olowosile, chairman of the Sustainable Green Environment Initiative, urged Nigeria to rediscover and scale local materials through targeted policy. “Importantly, such policies could attract the much‑needed funding to power the almost 30 million housing unit deficit in Nigeria,” he said. Olowosile added that with proper treatment bamboo’s tensile strength can match steel, that the plant regenerates within 18 months, absorbs carbon and could create jobs if scaled.
The remarks came amid stark evidence of housing stress. A recent BusinessDay Talk Exchange poll found 72 per cent of Nigerian workers spend about 40 per cent of their salaries on rent, the equivalent of roughly four to six months’ pay a year.
As it stands, Nigeria is Africa’s largest producer of sawn timber, with more than 2,130,000 cubic metres of industrial roundwood produced in 2020, including mahogany, iroko, obeche and African walnut processed in states such as Ondo, Ogun, Edo, Delta and Cross River. However, the bulk of that trade flows to export markets including China, the US, Germany, Indonesia, Finland, Poland and Brazil.
Last year, Wood Central revealed that the federal government was moving to curb log exports, leading Folorunsho Dada, legal adviser to the Processed Wood Producers and Marketers Association, to warn that the new policy could leave millions of jobs and revenue at stake. “Nigeria cannot afford such a heavy blow given the current economic and social realities, including a 40% inflation rate,” he wrote in a six‑page letter to the Chief of Staff to the President, Hon Femi Gbajabiamila, adding that the financial benefits from processing and export “is conservatively put at US $500m.”
Proponents of local‑material solutions say a coordinated policy push could deliver multiple benefits: cheaper building inputs, carbon sequestration through bamboo and timber, rural job creation and reduced import dependence. Realising those gains will require clear incentives, supply‑chain finance and investment in treatment and processing facilities to bring local materials up to modern building standards.
