Two families were elated at the weekend as they won three-bedroom flats each in the AG Mortgage Bank (AGMB) Plc reality show.
While Rev. Bassey Kalu won the evangel category, the Dickson Oyetayo family emerged victorious in the secular category.
The company presented two units of fully-furnished three-bedroom bungalows at the Grand Luvu Estate in Masaka, Nasarawa State to the winners of the 2023 edition of the ‘Big Family Dream Show’.
The Executive Director/Chief Operating Officer (COO) of the primary mortgage institution, Mr. Simon Ogwu, said the bank was determined to make livable and affordable home ownership its top priority.
He said: “We are a mortgage institution and real estate finance institution and our primary goal is to make sure we provide every family in Nigeria with a livable and affordable home.
“In achieving that, we realize that people need to understand how market penetration is done. A lot of people don’t understand that they can own homes through a mortgage platform in this country.
“So, our aim and objectives is to ensure that we drive down culture of home ownership through mortgage creation and you cannot access mortgage if you don’t understand the culture of savings because there is a portion that is called the personal stake which is your equity payment that is required to access a composite sum which we called a mortgage.
“We have this understanding that we need to provide every family with a home. For instance, if a home is provided for a family consisting of a father, mother and ideally three children, it means five human beings have shelter over their head. If 100 homes are achieved in a year, 500 souls would be given homes.
“If we are able to achieve our target of providing at least 1,000 livable and affordable homes yearly for Nigerians, that means we are providing 500,000 people accommodation every year.
According to him, the bank mooted the idea of the show as part of overall measures to actualise its drive for more Nigerians to own livable and affordable homes.
He added that “the Big Family Dream Show’ is a reality television programme that helps families to understand the culture of savings and financial management towards home acquisition.”
Ogwu noted that the show, categorised into the ‘evangel’ and ‘secular’ groups started with an audition across the country and with the selection of participants of the television programme, culminating in the eventual winners who won a unit of three-bedroom bungalow each.
Presenting the keys to the winners, Ogwu observed that it takes a bank with the credibility and doggedness which AGMB is noted for to keep to its promise at a time the economic fundamentals steadily headed south, contrary to the situation at the commencement of the show.
He pointed out that the bank goes with the mantra of “the partner you can trust”, adding that despite the worsening inflationary trend and other economic dislocations, AGMB still went ahead to deliver the bungalows where other players would have defaulted, using the worsening economic environment as an alibi.
