Menace of outrageous rents

Location. Location. Location. This is the crowing and well-worn mantra of the Estate Agent. The Estate Agent’s logic is that a property’s worth is informed by its location – whether top-tier, prime or otherwise. In our capital city, Abuja, the worth of property is adjudged by this notable consideration: whether it is located in the […]

Location. Location. Location.

This is the crowing and well-worn mantra of the Estate Agent. The Estate Agent’s logic is that a property’s worth is informed by its location – whether top-tier, prime or otherwise.

In our capital city, Abuja, the worth of property is adjudged by this notable consideration: whether it is located in the high-brow and low density districts of Maitama, Asokoro and Guzape or the low-brow and high density districts of Gwagwalada, Nyanya and Karshi.

But if recent reports are anything to go by, this time-honored mantra of the Estate Agent may soon be upended and the average income earner put in great peril.

A recent survey by the NEWS AGENCY OF NIGERIA (NAN) has brought to the fore the unseemly predicament of most residents of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT).

According to the survey, residents of the FCT continue to face outrageous increases in rents. Some landlords, aided and abetted by agents, are said to be in the habit of renewing their rents by a whopping 75% every two years, regardless of their financial implications to their tenants.

For instance, one-bedroom flats in the City Centre are said to range from N2.5 to N3 million, depending on location. These stratospheric rents have forced average income earners, especially civil servants, to migrate from the City Centre to the suburbs and satellite towns such as Kubwa, Gwagwalada and Mararaba (in Nasarawa State).

Even where the average income workers migrate to the suburbs where less rents are being charged, they are confronted with paying higher transportation fares to work and back. Gwagwalada is 57.6 kilometers from the City Centre.

Kubwa, depending on where you are domiciled in that sprawling estate, is 25-35 kilometers to the City Centre.  Mararaba is 16 kilometers to the City Centre.

The outrageous rents are a reflection and a validation of what obtain in other states. A  survey carried out by PREMIUM TIMES in July 2025 showed that in Kaduna some landlords had tripled their rents in a single year.

A tenant told PREMIUM TIMES: ”It has become a trend. A landlord just calls you and says rent has gone up without providing any improvements or amenities in the house”.

From Mahuta New Extension, Narayi, Polytechnic Road to Chalawa/Barnawa in Kaduna, there are tales of woe by tenants. Arbitrary and unaffordable rent hikes have also been reported in such Kaduna districts as Sabon Tasha, Malali, Kawo, Badarawa, Kakuri, Unguwan Shanu, etc.

Last month April, DAILY POST reported similar astronomical rents in Jos-Plateau State and the anguish of tenants. A one-bedroom apartment is said to go between N800,000-N1.2 million at Rayfield, Gurra Top, Millionaires’ Quarters, Federal and State Low Costs and Rantya.

The same menace afflicts Maiduguri, the Borno State capital. Rental prices have seen significant increases due to high demand, occasioned by the Boko Haram insurgency. A single room is said to range, depending on its facilities, from N700,000 to N1.5 million.

Though these surveys cover a few states, one can wager that their outcomes reflect growing trends across state capitals and towns in the country.

What factors are causing these astronomical rents and prompting average income earners to express frustration and indignation? The unvarnished truth is that the cost of building materials has since shot through the roof. A 50kg bag of cement ranges from N10,000 to over N15,000 depending on distance and location.

Popular brands such as Dangote, BUA, and Lafarge are said to be retailing at between N11,500 and N12,100. PVC Ceiling prices range from N19,000 to N55,000 per bundle.  Iron rods and electrical materials for wiring increase in price on a near daily basis. So do paints, nails, and labour. Haulage of sand and chipping are contingent on prevailing petrol/diesel prices and distance to source/quarry.

Heightened insecurity has also put considerable pressure on accommodation. With the advent of insurgency, banditry and other acts of terror, rural areas and folks have become cheap targets.

This vulnerability has in turn compelled a mass migration from the rural areas to the cities where people believe the security agencies can protect them. This is as opposed to our far flung villages with decrepit roads, poor telephone network coverage and little or no security presence.

Non-governmental organisations and other volunteers who have arrived to succour those hurting or are displaced by insurgency, also require accommodation, mostly in secure and high-brow locations. This in itself, though welcoming, is a stressor.

In other jurisdictions, the activities of internet fraudsters, known as YAHOO BOYS, has worsened matters. Before now, they carried out their nefarious activities in hotels and guest houses.

But with the interventions of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), they have resorted to renting well-heeled accommodations, thereby pushing up rents.

Though the cost of building has been upward bound for decades, some landlords and estate agents have carried themselves more like marble-hearted and greedy shylocks: they impose and exact prohibitive and impossible rents on their tenants.

We grant that the landlords and agents are subject to the vagaries of the economy and the prevailing hard times. But these do not excuse the tripling of rents within the space of one year as alleged in these surveys.

It is against this backdrop that the government must moderate the excesses of these landlords and agents. But the government can only have the moral justification to weigh in if it takes measures, short and long term, to bring down the cost of building materials.

Landlords, after all, are investors. They may have borrowed to put up their buildings. Besides, they expect to recoup the monies they have invested, over reasonable time, and to make some profit.

This is the more reason our governments, federal and state, must invest in the area of housing. They can lay emphasis on owner-occupier houses for their workers where payments are deducted from monthly salaries and over decades. This will be a departure from the estates being built by some state governments.

Often, they are either unaffordable or they are left uncompleted and they become havens for reptiles to frolic. It will also make workers to give in their best and to carry on with the dignity that accommodation confers.

Our Federal Ministry of Housing, the Federal Housing Authority (FHA) along with our tertiary institutions should research into how we can build cheap, eco-friendly houses using locally sourced materials. China has shown savvy in deploying bamboo, not only to erect scaffoldings, but to build bridges and lay foundations for high-rise buildings.

Additionally, once upon a time, the storied FHA built exquisite houses using burnt bricks. Some of these can be found at the P.W. District of the Kubwa Estate, Abuja.

What has become of our burnt brick factories strewn across the country?

Our housing challenge and outrageous rents should challenge us to think inwards and out of the box. Otherwise, we will soon be a country of hobos and the homeless.

 

Nick Dazang, a veteran journalist lives in Abuja.