Oga Landlord

Such people are not necessarily poor, in fact most of them are very rich and they rent houses, lease cars and airplanes and hire practically everything else they need. Despite the economic reality that most people will never be able to purchase a house the Nigerian government pays only lip service to providing affordable decent […]

Such people are not necessarily poor, in fact most of them are very rich and they rent houses, lease cars and airplanes and hire practically everything else they need. Despite the economic reality that most people will never be able to purchase a house the Nigerian government pays only lip service to providing affordable decent housing. They are shirking their responsibility to building low cost housing estates and providing for the majority of the population leaving them in the hands of unscrupulous landlords. Section 16(1)(d) of the 1999 Constitution under the fundamental Objectives and Directive Principles of State Policy declares that Government should “provide suitable and adequate shelter for all citizens” Regrettably government cannot be forced to take action because it is only an objective therefore it is not subject to litigation or enforceable in law.
Many social activists have long since advocated that since housing is a right, this fundamental objective must be part and parcel of a section of the constitution enforceable in law by Nigerians. They claim that the standard of housing in a nation is a measure of its effective economic development, its standard of living and its height of civilization and yet in Nigeria government has callously left the provision of mass housing to the private sector. Low income housing is not a profitable venture therefore the profit driven private sector has concentrated on building estates for the rich. As a consequence millions of Nigerians are forced to live in sub-standard accommodation in sub-human environments characterized by slum, squalor, and grossly inade-quate social amenities. Uncontrolled landlords charge extortionist rents for substandard accommo-dation.
 Landlords can be traced back to roman times when agricultural labourers known as peasants were tied and bound to the land they worked on. Whatever the peasant earned part went to the landlord and the rest for upkeep of his family, the tenant was dependent upon the landlord for protection and justice. What an irony that these days the biggest injustices are perpetrated by landlords against their tenants. Landlords see themselves as lords over those who don’t know their rights. Generally the landlord is responsible for making repairs and performing property maintenance. While on the other hand the tenant is responsible for keeping the property clean and safe. In Nigerian the situation is different. Landlords seldom undertake any repairs of the premises let alone maintenance. Rather they would prefer to eject the tenant and find someone else who is so hard pressed that they will manage the situation. In America, whose system of government we claim to follow there are a limited number of reasons a tenant can be evicted, and there is a legal process.
In both the USA and Britain there is an implied warranty of habitability whereby a landlord must maintain safe decent housing conforming to all building and safety regulations. In Nigerian the case is markedly different where practically all new buildings that have collapsing on a regular basis are being constructed for rent.  Our failed national housing policy means that landlords are under no competition from government housing and no standard has been set for acceptable accommodation.  In developed countries it very unusual for a landlord to rent an empty property. A tenant on weekly or monthly rent would expect the landlord to provide a fridge, cooker, beds, and chairs in the property. In such countries being a landlord is a regulated business. Many owners hire property managers to take care of the details of renting their property to a tenant. This includes advertising the property showing it to prospective tenants, collecting the rent when eventually rented out and performing repairs as needed. In Nigeria any intending tenant will first have to employ his own agent ever before paying “legal fees’ to the landlord. The complete lack of enfor-ceable legislation protecting the rights of tenants and absence of an arbitration system to sort out problems between landlords and their tenants has caused so much social disorder. Regular fights threats to life and the intervention of the police force. As usual the corrupt police and security forces demand gratification for harassing tenants out of a property. The recent murder of Nigerians living in an uncompleted building in Apo has been ascribed to a landlord trying to evict tenants by use of force.
The easiest way for a landlord to get a tenant out of his property is to tell police that the person is a thief, cultist, or terrorist. Before making any serious investigation they will kill or arrest the tenant. The stowaway 15 year old Daniel Ohikhena who survived a flight as a stowaway inside the wheel carriage of an Arik Air flight from Benin to Lagos was apparently the victim of a broken home caused by excessive rent demands. Government must take in the issue of uncontrolled landlords, reverse its policy and massively investment in the low-income housing sector as it will affect all facets of our life and has the potential to generate employment, increase productivity, address wealth distribution, raise the standard of living, alleviate poverty, as well as to reduce crime rate, insurrections, militancy, and terrorism. If the government finds it so difficult to spare funds from first-ladyship, overseas travels, and superannuation, then they should at least enact enforceable legislation to firstly set standards for the sort of accommodation a landlord can placed on the market, and secondly inform all tenants of their rights.