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By Anthony S. Aladekomo
It is indisputable that Lagos State is the pace-setter (never mind that Oyo State arrogates that appellation to itself) politically, economically and socially among the various states of Nigeria. In many sectors, it is the trailblazer; it leads and the other states follow. This has also been the case in the area of the formulation of laws and policies in Nigeria.
For example, it was the first to pass a statute criminalising collection of rents in advance for more than one year. That statute was the Tenancy Law 2011 enacted during the administration of Babatunde Fashola, SAN, a lawyer. For the avoidance of doubt, section 4 (1) and (3) of that law makes it unlawful for a landlord or his agent to demand or receive rent for more than one year from a tenant or would-be tenant. Paying a rent for more than one year is similarly made unlawful for a sitting tenant or would-be tenant in section 4 (2) and (4) of the same law. Any person who is found guilty of those provisions shall be guilty of an offence and be liable on conviction to a fine of N100,000 or three months’ imprisonment. Apparently and expectedly, millions of peasant and middle-class Lagosians showered prayers of blessing on Fashola, because many Shylock landlords and landladies in Lagos were by then increasingly becoming inhuman, as they were going to the extent of insisting on two or three years’ advance rent!
The voluntary compliance with and success of the said provisions of the Tenancy Law 2011 must have inspired the recent insistence of the Lagos State government to soon begin to implement monthly rent collection in the state. Any policy that will reduce the burden of overloaded rent payment by the tenants in Lagos State, where rent payment is heaviest in Nigeria along with Abuja, should normally be hailed and be supported by patriotic citizens.
As a person who has lived in Lagos for decades and who relates with people across all classes in the state, I can testify that further reducing the maximum rent collectible by landlords from one year will be a great relief to helpless tenants in the state. The advantage that the policy will do the masses in the state is axiomatic and obvious, more so the economic situation in the country recently became worse and less friendly to the masses and even to the middle class. The indices of the worsened economic situation include astronomical rents, inflated prices of food commodities, high cost of transportation and increase in school fees, among others.
Though it does not appear that there is already any law or amendment of any law to back the monthly rent collection initiative, the Lagos State government has, in recent times, repeatedly hyped it. For example, in March, Mrs. Barakat Odunuga-Bakare, the Special Adviser on Housing to Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu, restated their plan for the monthly rent collection during a press briefing. According to her, the first phase of the policy will be a “trial run” to be conducted in the public sector, so that it will become more adaptable and fair. Afterwards, it will be extended to the private sector. She stated further that the monthly rent collection will kick off towards the end of 2024 or at the beginning of 2025.
This article is however meant to caution the policy-makers behind the current move to legislate or begin to implement monthly rent collection in Lagos State. While it would be commendable if the state government rolls out another policy that will further make life less harsh for Lagos tenants, such a policy should not turn out to be rash, myopic, counterproductive or unjust to any stakeholder.
Accordingly, there are words of caution and advice here for the Lagos State governor and his advisers on housing. The policy should not be rolled out or implemented without putting in place a prior holistic approach. In other words, there is the need to allow both the landlords and the tenants to have justice, fairness and equity in the formation and implementation of the policy. Is the government right to just narrowly consider the interest of tenants with virtual no consideration of the interest of landlords and landladies, many of who are not filthy rich and who built their properties with their sweat and toil? Will it be just to compel some of such people, who built their properties for their sustenance after their retirement and at old age, to collecting a paltry monthly rent? Should a person who acquired and built real properties as his sole investment and business be compelled suddenly into collecting just a monthly rent, which will never be enough to plough back?
What will be the fate of certified estate managers, real property solicitors and estate agents who depend on yearly or half-yearly agency fees as their sources of income and means of livelihood? The truth is that the proposed monthly rent collection will drastically affect the investments, businesses and financial fortunes of the aforementioned retirees, old people, investors, businessmen and property agents.
In the light of the foregoing, the Lagos State government has got to do a meticulous holistic consideration of all relevant issues before implementing the monthly rent collection proposal. If the state government is bent on reducing collectible rent, the ideal downward review should be to six months; nothing less. The government has also got to make the policy to have a legal backing. If it has no enabling law, it will be a lame policy. For, where there is no law, there is no offence.
Having stated the foregoing facts, figures, laws and recommendations, I must also add that the Lagos State government should clear the air on the hypocrisy still surrounding the proposed rent policy. How does the state government want to reconcile the monthly rent collection policy with the suffocating land use charges (LUC) that it annually imposes on Lagos real property owners, many of whom are venerable retirees and old people?
Secondly, if the government is genuinely committed to making housing more affordable or accessible to its citizens, it should prioritise proving low-cost housing for commoners just like the Lateef Jakande administration did between 1979 and 1983. Thirdly, the government should first release the plots of land due to some of its public servants and residents, which it has inhumanly refused to give them decades after they had fully paid for them. I actually have a client, a former Lagos State public servant, who has been denied his plot of land till date by the Lagos State over 30 years after fully paying for it. The client fully paid for just a single plot of land in the Ipaja Housing Scheme as far back as 1989. The lame and cruel excuse of the Lagos State Land Bureau’s Land Use and Allocation Committee all these decades has been that there is no land yet, even after we have told them that the plot of land would be acceptable to our client in Ipaja or anywhere in the state.
Until the Lagos State government makes right such land-grabbing injustices, human rights violations and wrongs, many will continue to see its overhyped monthly rent collection proposal as an exercise in hypocrisy.
•Dr. Aladekomo is a Lagos-based law lecturer and public affairs analyst.
