The senate may mean well, but its proposal that landlords should not impose rents for two years or even a year, puts the cart before the horse.
Yet we must understand where the problem is coming from. The bill, which has passed first reading, was proposed by Senator Smart Adeyemi who represents Kogi West Senatorial District. The bill titled, “Advance rent for residential apartments, office spaces, etc, regulation bill 2022,” laments the suffering of the vast majority of renters, poor Nigerians and business persons who have to bleed their finances in order to secure a roof over their heads and commerce.
It is one of the many silent agonies of the average Nigerian, especially those living in urban areas. The landlords are aware of this, but they slam the fees. The irony is that if the rents were to be paid monthly, or even every other month, many Nigerians can afford them. But they cannot ferret out lump sums for the yearly or two-years rents that shylocks demand.
In most of the world, especially in advanced countries, no one asks for two-month rent, no less a year or two. Ironically, a few who are better endowed complicate matters for the poorer ones by encouraging the landlords. They do so by offering to pay three years in one swoop.
Senator Adeyemi may have been spurred by these stories of alienation. “It may not be an issue to quite a number of people but to many others, it is a great pain… Most Nigerians need the protection of the law to be able to meet their basic needs after paying rent,” explained Adeyemi.
He also asserted that some of the vampiric landlords are corrupt individuals who sucked the Nigerian system to afford their houses.
But compassion must yield to order. Given the Land Use Act, the land belongs to the states and not to the Federal Government. The senate should have encouraged state executives and legislators to pass those laws. It forgets that we operate a federal system, and that calls for the states to exercise certain prerogatives. The bill is a compassionate interloper.
Some states have started to intervene. One of them is Lagos. In 2011, it enacted a law that forbids such arbitrary acts by landlords. It is not as drastic as Adeyemi’s but it has started the dialogue. It says it is “unlawful for a landlord or his agent to demand or receive from a new or prospective tenant, rent in excess of one year in respect of any premises; it is also unlawful for the new or prospective tenant to offer or pay rent in excess of one year.”
The senate can set in motion by legislation a more egalitarian and encompassing mortgage system that will paralyse the shylocks. We have a mortgage system, but it seems to serve too few and even at that it still carries some of the elitist tendencies that a true and people-oriented system should not exercise.
Such a system also puts red tape over empathy. In the end, we shall propagate a system of inequality that falls into the landlords’ hands. A true system tends to be difficult in Nigeria because we run a primitive form of capitalism. A true mortgage system in a capitalist milieu serves the quiet accumulative instincts of the upper class. But our patrician elite do not even know how to oppress in peace. We abhor any oppression. So, we want a true mortgage arrangement.
The other point is for the senate to ensure the cost of building materials are not so high that landlords pass the burden to tenants.
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