Lawyer Blames Landlords, Tenants’ Friction On Greed

Governor Nyesom Wike of Rivers State (2nd right), addressing protesting bus drivers over the killing of their colleague by a policeman in Port Harcourt recently.

A Port Harcourt-based
lawyer, Barr. Uche Allen, has attributed the influx of tenancy matters in the various police stations across the state to cupidity of landlords.
Barr. Uche Allen, who stated this in Port Harcourt while speaking with newsmen at the weekend expressed regrets that despite the tenancy laws in the state, greedy and illiterate landlords had continued to molest, harass and intimidate their tenants.
He noted that it was regrettable that many years after the tenancy laws were enacted in the state, landlords had continued to use self-help.
Barr. Allen said self-help had no place where the rule of law existed.
According to him, “landlords sometimes flog their tenants, deroof  their buildings as way of ejecting their tenants. They increase their rents without dialoguing with their tenants.”
“It is unfortunate that many tenants are two poor to seek redress in a court of law. Consequently evil continuous to  prevail. I want a situation where crimes relating to tenancy are expeditioue charged to court. We cannot continue to fold our arms, while illegality becomes the norm in our society. It is ridiculous,” he stated.
Barr. Allen, who reacting to a situation where a certain landlord who after collecting rent from a female tenant locked her shop because he wanted the tenant to accept the increase which he had only introduced when the rent was due.
The Port Harcourt lawyer urged landlords to use lawyers to run their estates so that the friction between tenants and landlords would be less.

Chidi Enyie