Nigerians have raised the alarm over what they describe as incessant and arbitrary increases in rents by landlords and their agents across the country.
A cross-section of the citizens, who spoke in separate interviews with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) from across the country, said the skyrocketing rent was making life unbearable for them.
Consequently, they have urged federal and state governments to, as a matter of urgency, intervene in what they called the situation in virtually all the states of the federation, which they described as unfortunate.
The respondents particularly called for the implementation of extant rent laws by state governments to rescue tenants from those they called shylock landlords and their agents.
They also stressed the need for governments at all levels to build affordable homes for low-income earners and put a benchmark on rents in order to help the tenants.
NAN checks showed that house rents had shot up by about 150 per cent in the last two years in Bauchi, Dutse and Gombe, thus forcing many residents to move out of town to enable them to get affordable accommodation.
In Kano State, some of the residents, who spoke with NAN, said that paying rent in the capital city had now become very hard, as landlords increase rents at will.
A survey conducted by NAN in different areas within the Kano metropolis showed that some landlords had increased rents on their properties.
For instance, in highbrow areas like Nasarawa GRA, Bompai and Badawa layout, a two-bedroom flat and a three-bedroom apartment have risen from ₦600,000 and ₦700,000 to ₦800,000 ₦1 million, respectively.
The rent for a duplex of four rooms and above presently stands at between ₦1.5 million and ₦3 million per annum, depending on the landlord.
The Vice Chairman, Kano Property Agent Development Association (KAPADA), Sabiu Ado, attributed the increase to the high cost of building materials, which he said had tripled, thereby forcing landlords to increase rents.
According to him, it requires more than ₦10 million to build a bungalow with good finishing, saying that this affects how much they rent out such buildings.
“The cost drivers such as land, rods, cement, roofs, paint, louvres, woods and others determine the cost and rent of a building,” Ado said.
A landlord, Musa Sani, also said that the increment had become necessary to enable them to have value for their investments.
Malam Abba Yusuf, a federal worker transferred from Kaduna to Katsina, said it was unfortunate that most of the landlords or caretakers did not have respect for their tenants.
According to him, about a year ago, his landlord sent him out of the house, because he rejected rent increase, which he said, doubled what he used to pay.
He, therefore, urged the government to, as a matter of urgency, address the way and manner house owners behave to their tenants, in spite of the existing rent laws.
A landlord, Malam Sanusi Charanchi, said he had no other choice than to increase house rent because of the current economic hardship.
Charanchi said as a retired civil servant, he only relied on the income from his houses, stating: “Every day you go to the market, the prices of foodstuffs keep going up.
“Therefore, as my only source of income, I also have to increase the rent to meet up with the gap created by the economic situation in the country,” he said.
Joe Yaji, a tenant in Jalingo, told NAN that his landlord just woke up one day and increased house rent from ₦200,000 to ₦300,000, citing the high cost of living in the country.
Yaji appealed to the Taraba government to come up with laws that would protect tenants from arbitrary increases in house rent by the landlords, saying that the cost of living was negatively affecting everyone, including tenants.
Joy Manu, another tenant in Jalingo noted that the rent in every house in Magami Area of Jalingo, where she was residing, had been increased by more than 50 per cent.
Manu expressed frustration, noting that the situation had further increased the economic hardship being experienced in the country.
Alhaji Yahuza Magaji, the Executive Director of the Initiative for Community and Human Development in Taraba, said landlords in the state were charging whatever they wanted because there was no regulation of the sector.
Magaji noted that some landlords, especially shop owners often insisted on payment of two to three years rent.
He said that his organisation would take up the responsibility of pushing for the establishment of an agency in the state that would ensure that landlords were fair in their dealings with tenants.
In Plateau, the state Commissioner for Housing and Urban Development, Ubandoma Laven, blamed the general hike in rent on the recent spike in the cost of living.
Laven, who noted that though there could be legitimate reasons on the part of house owners in jerking up the prices of renting houses, said some of the landlords were just being insensitive to the plight of tenants.
“For a fact, it is an obvious reality that the recent hike in housing in major cities of Nigeria today has become alarming.
“If you look at the cost of housing two years ago in Jos and what is obtainable today, you would be alarmed at the transition, but the truth is even the blind are not oblivious of the general changes in the economy of this nation.
“I mean, even tomatoes have skyrocketed to a point where almost only the elites could afford it at some point, how much more housing?
“We can’t rule out the fact that there are bad eggs in every business venture who give the craft a bad name, but the reality is that landlords are also experiencing a hike in living conditions across the country,” he said.
On what the government was doing to forestall and protect the interest of individuals from property agents and landlords, the commissioner said that there were regulatory bodies saddled with the responsibility of ensuring conformity within the sector.
He stressed that the government would do everything within its power to ensure that the rights of citizens were protected.
Similarly, Emmanuel Solomon, Chairman of the Nigerian Institute of Estate Surveyors (NIESV) in Plateau, reiterated the need for sanity in the sector as it had become a marketplace for miscreants and pilferers.
Solomon said that in order to forestall the irregularities within the sector, the government needed to enforce certain rules to protect the citizens from pilferers masking as property agents in the country.
“As an institute, we are working to ensure that all relevant stakeholders in the housing sector rise to the challenges confronting us; we’re also putting hands together to ensure that the average Nigerian tenant is protected.
“We also want to call on the government to provide alternative means of housing for the common man, which will reduce the impact these wolves have on the public.''
The situation is not different in Makurdi, as Terseer Jenkwe, a real estate agent, blamed the rising cost of housing on the lack of laws guiding rent in Benue.
Jenkwe, the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Jenkwe Properties, also attributed the soaring cost of rent in the state to the prevalent economic conditions, such as inflation and currency fluctuations.
A cross-section of tenants in Maiduguri, Damaturu and Yola, mostly affected by insurgency, told NAN that the gradual return of peace in the states had led to a growing population and demand for houses.
NAN reports that in Maiduguri which recently experienced flooding that affected almost half of the town, house rents have doubled in some areas, such as New GRA, Old GRA, Damboa Road, Moduganari bypass, 202 estates, 303 estates, Bulumkutu, and Polo areas.
A two-bedroom apartment that once cost between ₦200,000 and ₦300,000 per year now goes for as much as ₦700,000 to ₦800,000.
In more developed neighbourhoods like New GRA, Old GRA and Damboa Road, the rents are even higher, going between ₦1 million and ₦2 million, depending on the locations.
To Daniel Clement, an artisan, it is inhuman to increase rent on a house built many years ago owing to the current economic situation.
“As a tenant, I have received terrible treatment from my landlord who does whatever he likes.
“Government should build affordable homes for low-income earners and also regulate the arbitrary increase in house rents. If the government can put a benchmark on rents, it will greatly help the residents,” he said.
In Abeokuta, Ogun capital, the residents urged the state government to check what they described as an indiscriminate increase in house rents by landlords across the state.
They lamented that tenants had been groaning under the burden of the “cut-throat” rent being charged by landlords and their agents.
Stephen Agwu, a civil servant, said his landlord had continued to increase rent at will, with threats of eviction if he could not pay.
Ahmed Akintunde, a transporter, told NAN that he had continued to tolerate insults and ill-treatment from his landlord who often used rent increases to “settle scores” whenever they had disagreements.
Another tenant, Adebowale Akinsanya, said she moved into a two-bedroom flat In the Ijeja area of Abeokuta in December 2023 with an annual rent of ₦500,000.
Akinsanya lamented that since the announcement of a new minimum wage, his landlord had told him to prepare to pay an additional ₦150,000 when renewing his rent in December.
Reacting to the trend, Mary Johnson, an interior decorator, attributed the arbitrary increase in rent to the influx of people from Lagos to the state, particularly Abeokuta, the state capital.
“Ogun has become an extension of Lagos state because of the proximity and this has led to migration into the state with the attendant hike in house rent.
“Landlords have continued to take undue advantage of the situation as the demand for houses increases,” she said.
In his contribution, an Abeokuta-based legal practitioner, Abdul-Razak Adeyemi, said issues concerning tenancy and renting of apartments were purely within the purview of state governments.
Adeyemi noted, however, that the law regulating tenancy and relationship with landlords in the state was enacted since the creation of the state in 1976.
“There has not been any new law which will regulate the hike of rent in the state.
“Unfortunately the law was made during the military government and the highest rent then was N20 and till today the law has not been amended.
“So, it cannot be implemented because the law is not in line with the current situation in the state,” he said.
Adeyemi, therefore, called for an urgent amendment of the tenancy law to reflect current economic realities.
Folarin Olayinka, National Vice-President, Committee for the Defence of Human Rights (CDHR), corroborated
Adeyemi on the need for an enabling law guiding landlord/tenant relationship in the state.
Olayinka noted that tenants were usually at the receiving end during negotiations, either as fresh or existing tenants, because of the lack of existing law or implementation of the same.
He said however that the general increase in prices of goods and services across the nation had contributed to the hike in rent.
An Ijebu Ode-based property manager, Music Alayaki, urged the government to address the huge housing deficit in the state and build affordable houses for the masses.
He also stressed the need to encourage real estate investors to build rent-to-own and affordable houses to turn tenants into landlords.
Alayaki further urged the Federal Government to work on the economy to bring down the general increase in prices of goods and services, including prices of building materials.
Uche Anthony, a tenant at the State Low-Cost Houses in Gombe, said the rate at which the rent in Gombe was being hiked had worsened the poverty index among residents.
“Many cannot feed well because they need to pay high rent; the state government should find a way to make rent increment periodic and not yearly,” he said.
Recounting his ordeal, Sadik Iliyasu, a tenant in the Takur area of Dutse, said he paid ₦185,000 as an agent fee to enable him to rent a three-bedroom house in the area.
Ilyasu said that some agents were requesting two years' payment from tenants, lamenting that the high commission being demanded by the agents had made the situation unbearable.
Foluke Akinpelu, the Chief Executive Officer of Narrator Global International, a landlady around the Alakia area of Ibadan, said since it was a reality that would occur, it was prudent to understand how best to handle the issue when faced with it.
She described hikes in house rent by house owners and their agents without complying with the laws guiding rent charges as illegal, saying that the rent acts frowned at this.
Akinpelu also said it was illegal for landlords to increase rents without following proper procedure, such as giving adequate notice or adhering to a maximum allowable rent increase.
She, however, said that house owners had various reasons for taking such steps, adding: “but the commonest of it is inflation and the cost of maintaining or repairing the property which has gone up significantly.
“The forces of demand and supply often determine the rent if more tenants are seeking to rent property; the agents often leverage that pressure to push for the highest rent possible, which may later form the benchmark for other landlords.
“But it is wrong, especially when the current lease of the tenant is about to expire.
“This is a strategic time that most landlords use to exert pressure on the tenant, with the intention that if the tenant does not comply with their demand they will be given a notice to quit,” she explained.
Akinpelu, a retired teacher, identified the massive housing shortage as giving property owners more advantages than tenants.
A Director in the Oyo State Ministry of Lands, Housing, Survey and Urban Development, Raphael Ogunjobi, confirmed the existence of the State Tenancy Law guiding house rent in the state.
According to Ogunjobi, the tenancy law provides checks and balances for both tenants and landlords and also as a control measure on the excesses of both.
In his own view, an Ibadan-based legal practitioner, Olutunde Fatola, described the menace of frequent hikes particularly in the city of Ibadan as unacceptable.
Fatola insisted that the state had no legal framework to protect existing or would-be tenants against the exploitative tendencies of landlords and estate agents.
He said that tenants were presently at the mercy of estate agents and landlords because of the arbitrary fixing of house rents due to the absence of relevant laws to protect them.
“That is why a room and parlour self-contained costs as much as between ₦350,000 and ₦400,000, as against the ₦200,000 that had been the situation in Ibadan before,” he said.
However, an estate agent, Shakir Ogunseesin, contended that the bad state of the economy occasioned by the high cost of buying materials was responsible for hikes in house rents.
“We too have to live; we buy our things from the same market.
“How does a landlord, who has invested a huge sum in purchasing building materials and providing necessary things, make his profit?
“We all should also consider the cost of cement, roofing sheets and boreholes,” Ogunseesin said.
In Damaturu, the Yobe capital, a lawyer, Sadik Usman, described the practice by some landlords asking for two years rent as illegal.
Usman said the demand violated Yobe State Rent Control Law 1977.
He noted that although the law needed to be reviewed long before now, it remained a substantive law.
“Landlords are not allowed to impose advance rent payable for two or more years.
“Section 4 of the law states that no person shall demand or impose rent for a special home for more than 12 months,” Usman said.
The legal practitioner also said that ₦5,500 was the highest amount a landlord was allowed to charge as rent per annum for any kind of accommodation under the law.
The residents of Nasarawa, Niger and Kogi, appealed to the federal and state governments to enforce laws that would protect tenants from exploitation by landlords.
They said that enforcement of the laws guiding tenancy would check the excesses of landlords and protect tenants from exploitation.
Mallam Yusuf Adamu, a resident of Keffi, called for aggressive sensitisation on tenancy laws so that tenants would know their rights and seek justice when cheated by landlords.
“Full implementation is not the only issue here. As we speak, most Nigerians don’t even know those laws or whether they are in existence.
“So there is the need for a nationwide sensitisation so that tenants can know their rights and what to do if the rights are being infringed on,” he added.
Bukus Thomas, a tenant in Akwanga, Nasarawa State, appealed to landlords to consider the present economic hardship being faced by Nigerians.
“Things are hard in the country now; landlords should be considerate in their charges,” he said.
Joseph Adele, an Estate Manager in the Shettima area of Lokoja, said it had become necessary for the Kogi government to come up with a policy to checkmate the excesses of house owners before the situation got out of hand.
Adele lamented the attitudes of some landlords who, he said, were in the habit of collecting two years rent from their tenants at entry point, thereby making life difficult for them.
He said that some landlords preferred Yahoo boys as tenants because they would be able to pay whatever rent increases without complaining.
Also speaking, a retired civil servant, Michael Obaje, cited positive change in any particular society and market demands as possible reasons for rent increase.
“A critical look at Lokoja metropolis presently shows that the town is developing and attracting more people, hence the likelihood of having rent increase,” he stated.
Meanwhile, Maurice Magaji, Commissioner for Land and Survey in Nigeria, said the soaring house rents might not be unconnected to economic factors.
Magaji cited increased maintenance costs, building materials, and economic activities as contributors to the hike.
He noted that Niger State lacked specific laws guiding house rent, relying on national laws.
The commissioner, however, said that two-year advance payments from new tenants were not common in the state, except by personal agreement.
NAN reports that the respondents were unanimous in their opinions that the government must intervene in order to put sanity in the housing sector and rescue the masses from the shackles of the landlords and their agents.