Who Will Outlaw Advance Rent Payment?

By Dan Amor

In what appears to be one of the most salutary pronouncements by a functionary of the administration of the late President Umaru Musa Yar'Adua in 2009, the then Attorney General of the Federation and Minister of Justice, Mr. Michael Aondoakaa (SAN), challenged the Body of Attorney Generals of Nigeria, to initiate laws in their respective states to criminalise the demand for advance rent payments by landlords and landladies across the country. Aondoakaa who said this in a keynote address he presented at the opening of the Second Body of Attorney Generals Conference in Makurdi, Benue state, attributed the rising incidence of corruption in the country to the demand of between one and five year advance rent payment from tenants by greedy Nigerian landlords and landladies.

Similarly, the current Minister of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Malam Muhammad Musa Bello, recently frowned at the high cost of accommodation in Abuja and promised to urgently address the ugly situation. Indeed, a situation in which a 2-bedroom flat, even on the outskirts of Abuja metropolis goes for at least N500,000 per annum and the tenant is expected to renew the rent at the same rate annually, is unacceptable. Where will he or she get the money from? If a man who has three or more children in school should pay N500,000 yearly as rent in addition to other variable costs, how much is his annual salary or income? Like Aondoakaa rightly pointed out, if in countries like Ghana, Gambia and Benin Republic, rents are paid on monthly basis, why should Nigeria be an exception?

Despite its inelegant implications such as corruption or outright stealing, harassment, psychological torture and such other vice crimes as murder and prostitution, this evil practice, which is the highest form of feudalism, is thriving in Nigeria because of the high degree of insensitivity of government towards the plight of the suffering masses. These landlords or landladies work in connivance with those who call themselves estate agents and some dubious lawyers to manipulate the law and hoodwink unsuspecting and hapless tenants using some local customary courts presided by local criminals who are not even lawyers. You would rent an apartment for, say N700,000 per annum probably with a loan secured from your organisation or through savings. At the end of the year, that is, when it expires and you don't have money to renew the rent immediately with another N700,000, you are given a quit notice in which you are expected to park out of the apartment within a stipulated period of one week (seven days). At the end of the seven day notice, thugs ostensibly from a court invade your home with a fake warrant to forcefully eject you.