Tenant In Landlord’s Snare

Soibi Max-Alalibo

The relationship between tenants and landlords, particularly in the southern part of Nigeria, has hardly been cordial. In fact, in the last two decades or thereabout, it has gone from bad to worse.
The only time you see what looks like a cordial relationship between the two is mostly when the tenant is ready to give in to all the demands of the landlord, or behave like an outright fool.
Only few landlords do not disturb their tenants under whatever guise and even advocate for peaceful relationship with their tenants. Research has shown that most of the few landlords in this category are those who do not depend solely on rents from tenants for their livelihood.
Gone were the days when a landlord would think of the comfort of his tenants. These days, landlords are interested only in the rents, leaving tenants with the burden of house maintenance. Whether the roof is falling off does not bother the landlord and woe betide the tenant who insists on refurbishing of his house by his landlord and any tenant who carries out repair work on the building on his own does so at his or her own peril.
The situation in Port Harcourt appears to be worse, given its reputation as an oil-bearing and industrialised state. This attracts more population from across the country, most of whom are prepared to do anything to survive and so are willing to pay whatever amount to have shelter.
Consequently, not only do landlords care less about putting their houses in befitting shape, they increase rent arbitrarily, knowing that there is always a desperate person especially among those who work in oil-related sector or are involved in business, who would not mind whatever discomfort or inconvenience to get accommodation. Thus, the majority of the indigenous populace who are civil servants, are left to look like fish out of water.
The situation is quite different from the days of yore when a tenant could tell his landlord to repair a leaking roof or he would leave. Presently, landlords are even looking for new tenants because it would mean more money in bulk since the new tenant will often have to pay for at least two years, except under special agreement.
The recent declaration by the Rivers State Government that landlords should refurbish their houses by changing the old zinks with aluminum sheets and repainting is yet another opportunity for these landlords to eject their tenants with the excuse that they want to comply with His Excellency’s directive.
This seems to be more so because hitherto, the only genuine reason the landlords give when they want to eject a tenant they consider as non-performing, is that they want to “repair the house”, though most of them carry out no such task at the end of the day.
It seems to me that government’s directive would serve to rekindle the landlords’ antics even as the directive was merely intended to boost the aesthetic and tourism attraction of the city.
The question is, who will save the tenant from some overzealous landlords. As far as the landlords are concerned, the order amounts to subtle directive for them to eject tenants who cannot contribute their quota by paying advance of rents to take care of the renovation of the building.
Who can indeed save the tenant from the landlord when they have the backing of the government?