Rent is going up so much in the Garden City that it may push many into destitution.
Already, tenants and civil society groups in Rivers State have begun protests against the hike of far over 150% within the past one year. This is believed to have precipitated a housing crisis and attendant socio-economic confusion in the state.
The hike in rent, which had gradually grown over the last six to 12 months, has left existing and prospective tenants at their wits ends, leading to a steady exodus from the city center, Port Harcourt Town and adjourning areas in Ohio/Akpor, to outlying suburbs, such as Igbo Etche and Obigbo.
C.W. Enwefah, lawyer and convener, ‘Advisory Forum on Rent-Control’, speaking at the inaugural meeting of the forum in the week in Port Harcourt, pressed for avenues for affordable housing for the masses. He argued that the present rate of increase in rents would triple by the end of the year.
He placed the hike at almost 300 percent, adding that; “Before now, self-contained room was going between N150,000 and N200,000. It’s now between N500,000 and N700,000. By the end of the year, it may get to N1.2 million.”
Enwefah refused to follow the popular route of blaming the shortfall in affordable housing on increasing population figures, and migration from neighbouring states, but claimed that the seeming scarcity of living spaces is artificial.
“Rivers State is not in active shortage of housing. Rivers State has houses. What we are experiencing is because of the lapses in the Ministry of Urban Development that created the artificial scarcity in housing.
“They give license indiscriminately to landlords to convert sections of their property to stores and such, thereby reducing affordable residential spaces.
“It doesn’t end there. They equally give them permits to convert two rooms to self-contained, three rooms to one bedroom class, thereby reducing the quantity of affordable housing units.
“But everybody cannot be rich in the city. It is not everybody that can afford to live in a flat.
“Before this time, before a landlord could carry out a structural renovation or amendment, one of the conditions was that he had to make an appeal that at the end of the amendment or the decision, he will return the tenants to the property. But now, that is not the issue.
“The present rent increase has never occurred before in the history of Rivers State. It is something that has occurred just in the last six months. At least I can assure you that in less than one year one bedroom flat was going for N250 000; it is not something that was created by television or by demolition of properties for a ring road,” he said.
Enwefah argued that the housing crisis has less to do with Yahoo-Yahoo Boys inducing rent-hikes with their ready cash, the construction of a ring road by government, smart estate agents seeking ways of making extra money, but more to do with lack of rent-control by government that would regulate the sector and curb the greed of landlords.
Mina Aprioku, chairman of the ‘Advisory Forum on Rent-Control’, however said the solution to the housing crisis lies in a conscious effort to provide affordable housing, especially low cost housing, for citizens.
He said governments at the two tiers in the state, state and local, can take advantage of the huge land mass, including creeks, in the state to provide housing for its teeming population.
Aprioku argued that if a local government chairman in the riverine areas of Rivers State, for instance, “decides to reclaim a hectare of land in the creeks in a month, imagine how many plots of land would be available for housing within one year.”
In reaction to the housing crisis, however, a man simply known as Onyedikachi, a transporter who lives in Rumunduru, a community in Obio/Akpor Local Government Area, which is within the larger Port Harcourt metropolis, said the N350,000 he paid annually for a one-bedroom apartment in the community was recently jerked up to N450, 000, while the rent for his wife’s one-room shop was increased from N75,000 to N150,000 without notice.
The tangible reason was given for the hike than the landlord’s “overwhelming desire to do so.”
Isaac Mbah, journalist, attributed the rise in rents to landlords. He lamented that the situation is becoming very unbearable. He said: “Imagine a situation where self-contained is being paid for as much as N350,000. One-bedroom flat goes for as high as 550,000 Naira. There are some who are paying more than that. I think something needs to be done.
“Somebody has to step in to address this issue by calling the landlords to order, so that they can consider the economic hardship in the country. Because if it persists, many things will be affected; school fees need to be paid. You consider the high cost of living, the cost of food stocks. When you bring everything together, you see that little or nothing is left to be used to pay for the house rent,” he said.
Mbah urged the state government to step in, through the Office of the Urban Development, to ensure rents are regulated. He added: “If this thing is not properly checked, don’t be surprised if it degenerates into something serious. Don’t be surprised to see people leaving the cities to the rural areas.”
