The prohibition of the collection of advance rents for more than One (1) year is in section four(4) of the existing edict which has not been repealed!. The new law has only increased the fine to N100,000 as against N50,000 in the old edict probably in line with inflation and present value of money. I therefore wonder why many are rejoicing about it as if it is a new law. A major change that I can see is that the new law covers both residential and commercial properties unlike the old one that was limited to residential properties only.

It is a welcome provision but it does not take into consideration commercial users like banks who usually want security of tenure and therefore always willing to pay for Five or even Ten years in advance.

This is because they usually spend a lot on renovation in order to make the property suitable for their use. This is very unusual with most rent control laws as the conditions for renting commercial properties are not the same as those of residential properties. It should have been limited to residential properties only.

Another minor difference is that unlike the old edict, sitting tenants who are monthly tenants are now required to pay six(6) months rent on renewal. This is strange! A monthly tenant should continue to pay monthly after the initial advance.

There is a new innovation in the new law which will benefit both Landlords and tenants. And that is the introduction of alternative dispute resolution (ADR) through Citizen mediation Centers or Multi-Door courts. It is the inthing in the modern world. Instead of both parties spending money and time going to court, many cases will be disposed off by ADR. The law has gone further by making the decision of ADR enforceable like court judgements. This is very much welcome!

The issuance of quit notice has also been made easier. Unlike before, the quit notices need not terminate on the anniversary of the tenancy. This will remove a situation where you could not proceed to evict a tenant until after he has been owing one year rent. Now, if your tenant defaults, you can issue him a quit notice immediately. This is a welcome departure!

Again the need for personal service has been removed. You can now deliver the notice to any adult residing in the premises or by courier where the tenant cannot be found. This will remove a situation where tenants evade service of quit notices.

Unlike the old edict, the law does not stipulate any figure of rent to be collected anywhere. It must have dawned on government that such rent ceilings cannot be enforced in the face of scarcity of accommodation all over the place. However, it prohibits “unreasonable” increase! It also now compulsory to issue receipts for rent collected from tenants. Failure to issue receipts will attract a fine of N100,000.

The law is to assist tenants by reemphasizing the need to only pay one year advance rent which is a very good move. It shows that government is concerned about the welfare of the citizens of the state.

However, the people will appreciate this more if the government can provide more houses so that would-be tenants will have alternatives. The truth is that in the absence of alternatives, people will pay whatever the landlords demand irrespective of any law to the contrary. The law can only be enforceable where a report is lodged by the tenant. Any tenant who wants to have peace with his landlord will not report him to anybody unless he/she has seen an alternative.

There will be no need for any legislation on rents if houses are available. Even before the law, landlords in Ikoyi, Victoria Island and Lekki have already started to accept One (1) year rent. This is happening because there are so many houses available for rent in these areas due to the economic recession. If the type of houses required by the low and middle classes are available in the same way, there would be no need for this law.

I believe Governor Fashola will be remembered more by the number of houses he provides during his tenure than a tenancy law. How many people remember Buba Marwa today for his rent edict? Whereas, everybody remembers Alhaji Lateef Jakande for his low cost houses which can be seen everywhere from Lagos Island, (Adeniji Adele) to Iponri in Surulere, Amuwo Odofin, Isolo, Abesan, Iba and many more! Ditto for the medium income houses at Maryland and Alapere. Therefore, if this regime is serious about alleviating the suffering of the masses in the area of housing, let them follow the footsteps of Alhaji Jakande. The masses will appreciate this more than a tenancy law that may not work like previous rent control laws.

On the other hand excessive control on rents can act as a disincentive to investment in housing which in the long run will lead to a reduction in the supply of housing with the consequence of increase in rents. In the face of too many taxes and levies on properties in this state, high cost of construction, (cement is now N2,500 per bag), difficulties in securing land and getting building approval, property developers may be discouraged if government limit their income from such investment.

Lagosians will appreciate it more if the government can make it easier to secure allocation of land at affordable prices, control the price of cement and other building materials, reduce the excessive payments of many taxes and levies such as consent fees, land use tax, capital gain tax, development levy, regularization fees, stamp duties, registration fees, etc and build more houses that the people can afford as Lateef jakande did. It will be a better way to alleviate the suffering of the masses as far as housing is concerned rather than dissipating energy on laws that won’t work in the face of scarcity of the commodity!

Chief kola Akomolede.

Chairman, faculty of housing, NIESV.

While waiting, he suddenly discovered that not only that he was back in the tropics but he had to unbutton his jacket first, then his waist coast and later the shirt.  Why?  The hall was no better than an oven.  The air-conditioner was not working!

While the waiting continued still, he felt like answering nature’s call and following the sign and arrows he arrived at the Gents but he quickly rushed out.  Why?  The water closet (wc) was broken, there was no water and yet some sons of Adam had eased themselves there and so the place was stinking!  Waoh!  He exclaimed.

As they drove through the streets heading towards Surulere, John had noticed that every place was dark but he could locate the street light poles by the aid of the car head lamp but there was no light!  What’s happening men?  Haven’t you people got electricity in this Godam city?  He was told that it is normal to be in darkness for days without light here, the only abnormal thing is to see street lights on when the houses have not even got light, for where?  Back at home they had to make do with hurricane lamps and candle.  His hope of watching his famous stars, the Williams Sisters, played on Super Sports that night was dashed!

The following day, John set out to deliver the numerous messages he had brought from the U.S.A.  His first port of call was the 1004 Flats in Victoria Island.  He had looked forward to see the magnificent structures he used to see in the early eighties when his cousin, a senator lived there.  What a disappointment!  He had to climb twelve floors.   The lifts had stopped working a few years back, he was told.  Even if the lifts were working, there was no light as the generator that served the estate had packed up few years back.   (This was before the sale of the flats).

Then he had to see somebody in Festac and Apapa before returning to Surulere.  He had thought he could dash from Victoria Island to Festac and Apapa within one hour since it is all on express road!   He was disappointed.  It is no longer the express road he knew!  The service lanes are completely impassable, while you have to meander and look for solid areas to drive on what is supposed to be the express lanes.  Then he was to see a relation in Ibadan.  There again, the expressway he knew in the eighties is no longer the same!  Where is the ministry of works he asked?  He was not even aware that there is FERMA whose responsibility it is to maintain the roads.

All these did not amuse John but he was yet to complete his experience.  The following weekend he decided to visit the National Theatre to watch a film which had earlier been advertised.  Yet again, he had to abandon the film half way unless he was ready to suffocate!  Why! The air-conditioners had ceased to work several months ago.  Earlier on he had asked question on why people should queue for petrol in a country that is blessed with oil free from the soil.   He was told that the crude is available in abundance, the shortage is that of refined oil.  Then the refineries?  He was told they were waiting for TAM.  Who is TAM and why has he decided to refuse to visit the refineries thereby causing all these hardship?  He queried.  He was told that TAM means “Turn Around Maintenance”.

John shook his head and was lost in thought for a few moment then he exclaimed- all my problems since I came back has been due to refusal or neglect of Maintenance.   From the Airport experience to PHCN black out, lift in 1004, National Theatre, Fuel Queue, Bad Roads, etc. mention it, they are all due to our lack of maintenance culture.

Why should we build the best Airport in Africa but allow it to malfunction because we won’t maintain the facilities?  Why do we put up a multi-storey apartment without maintaining the lifts?  Why should we build thermal stations and Dams without maintaining them?  Why should we build refineries and refuse to maintain them?  Why should we construct roads and refuse to maintain them?  Questions, questions, – I can’t hear any answer.

What then is MAINTENANCE?  What does it demand that we cannot meet?  Do we lack the fund or the expertise or are we just being irresponsible?

Maintenance works can be described as those works necessary or carried out in order to keep or restore every facility or every part of a building or machinery to an acceptable standard.   What is acceptable standard is however subjective.  In developed countries, the acceptable standards are set by law although these are primarily directed to health and safety of occupiers of a building, or operators of a machinery.  The main purpose of maintenance are to preserve a building or machinery in its initial stage as far as practicable so that it can effectively serve the purposes for which it is built or made.   Additionally, maintenance is meant to retain or preserve the value of investment and present a good appearance.  From the foregoing, it is clear that without maintenance, a building or machinery will not be able to serve the purposes for which it is made.

This is why our lifts don’t work, our refineries can’t refine oil, our turbines and thermal plants can’t generate electricity, our transformers can’t distribute electricity, our conveyor belts won’t convey anything, air-conditioners won’t condition any air, our roads, won’t be motorable etc.  when we refuse to maintain them.

It is difficult to decipher how and why we came about this lack of maintenance especially of all our public utilities.  Because in our individual lives, we do maintain our properties!  For example, we all know we have to maintain our cars by regular servicing if we want it to continue to function.  I wonder how many people wait until their cars break down before they know it is necessary to service it!  Why then do we not apply this same when we are in charge of public utilities like the ones mentioned earlier on.   For example, how much will it cost to repair or replace the air-conditions at our gate way to Nigeria, the Muritala Mohammed Airport?  Or why will the NAA wait until the conveyor belt is no longer working before they know what to do?  For God’s sake why will somebody prevent the Turn Around Maintenance (TAM) of our refineries.  It is like not giving the hen that lays eggs food and still hope to get eggs from it.  I can hear you saying they did this because they hope to make money on imported fuel!  But what will they gain from non maintenance of roads, non maintenance of lifts, non maintenance of air conditioners, etc.  there must be more to it then.

One school of thought has traced the lapse to the dichotomy that existed between the powerful “Administrative Officers” and the Technical Officers that carried out maintenance works.

The Admin officers (non-technical officers) who allocate money are usually not favourably disposed to allocating sufficient funds for maintenance purposes.  They usually see such fund as money for the boys in the technical areas.  They will rather award contracts for replacement where they can have their kick backs.  Hence they will rather buy a new generator or vehicle than spend money to maintain existing ones.  They will prefer to award contracts for the re-construction of roads than provide money for its maintenance.  

Whenever there is need to balance a budget, the areas usually looked at is the maintenance budget.  At least I can testify to this.  There was a time I proposed that we set aside 20% of the income generated from our properties for maintenance since most of the facilities were old, I was embarrassed the way I was shouted down by the finance officers!

Because of insufficient provision in the budget for maintenance, once the sum provided is exhausted many maintenance jobs are therefore left undone.  The consequence of this are very many.  “A stitch in time saves nine” is a popular saying.  Therefore failure to carry out the repair of a little damage today may lead to greater damage or total collapse of the system later.

The sad experience of citizen John can be avoided if our policy makers will listen to the professionals whose duties are to maintain our facilities.  Let sufficient provision be made for maintenance of existing facilities in our annual budgets and such money released promptly when the need arises.  We should not wait for total breakdown before we know we should repair or service any equipment or facility.

This is what is known as preventive maintenance as opposed to corrective maintenance. More emphasis should be laid on preventive maintenance.  Those requiring servicing at regular intervals should be serviced on the due date.  Regular checks and inspection will help to detect in advance parts or facilities that are about to fail thereby preventing a breakdown or total failure.  Why can’t we fill potholes on our roads before they become lakes?

The era of replacement should be over now that the costs of replacement of many equipment or facilities are too prohibitive.  With one US dollar exchanging for N150.00, it costs a fortune now to purchase anything from generators to lifts, air-conditions and what have you.  Let us therefore cultivate the habit of maintaining what we have so that we can prolong their life and make them serve the purpose for which they are meant.

Administrative and finance officers should look less with suspicion towards provisions for maintenance.  After all, we all together suffer the consequences of lack of maintenance like black outs, fuel shortages, heat, bad roads, etc.  We should let our stitch in time same many and not even nine.

Chief Kola Akomolede

properties@kolaakomolede.com

In the same vein, Nigeria is blessed with large quantity of deposits of limestone (the raw materials for producing cement), all over the country, north, south, west or east. It is there in abundance! Our problem is how to turn this God-given gift to cement for our construction industry.

A few months ago, our hopes were raised by the news that Nigeria will not only be able to produce enough cement for domestic consumption but will soon be exporting the product. But today what do we have? The product has become so scarce that the price has risen by as much as 38% in the last six months. A 50kg bag that sold for N1,600 in August 2010 now sells for N2,200!. It could be more outside Lagos.

This problem keeps on recurring because of our overdependence on the use of cement in our construction industry. All our walls are built with cement blocks, our concrete pillars are cement stuffed, same goes for our concrete floors. Cement is used as mortar for bonding the blocks while it is in the same material we use for plastering and for laying the floor and wall tiles. Interlocking blocks made from cement are used for paving the compound and even roads. Cement is therefore a major component in our construction industry. Without cement, the construction industry will be grounded! This is why people will buy it at any price whenever there is a scarcity.

To solve this problem, government has always resorted to adhoc solutions like massive importation or waiver of import duty. But these have not always been effective rather it has sometimes created its own problems like the cement amada and port congestion of the 70s!

What needs to be done is to embark on a massive production of cement locally since we have the raw material in abundance. This we can do by government assisting the local manufacturers in the following ways:-

1. Give grants or interest free loan to existing cement manufacturers to allow them expand their production capacities.

2. Encourage new factories by giving incentives like waiver of import duties on plants and machineries used for the manufacture of cement. Afterall, the Federal government did this for GSM equipments when they were given licences initially. Tax holidays for some years can also be given to such new factories to enable them stabilize.

3. In view of the high costs of production occasioned by lack of necessary infrastructure especially power, government should also waive exercise duties on all locally produced cement to reduce the price to consumers. Right now, locally produced cement is more expensive than imported ones due to infrastructural problems like power and high interest rates.

4. As an interim measure only, the Federal government should allow importation of cement at no import duty for a period of just two years to allow 1-3 above materialise in sufficient local production of cement. Once the expansion programmes and new factories are completed, importation should be stopped to encourage the local industries.

In addition to be above, we should look at ways by which we can reduce our dependency on cement. Government should encourage the use of alternative materials like clay bricks, wood, fibre, stones and even mud walls. The only way to do this is for government to use these materials on government projects to demonstrate to the people that they are not inferior to cement blocks. About 90% of houses built in the U.K are built of red brick walls. In the US, wood is mostly used as walling materials.

The impression is given that red brick is inferior to cement blocks in this part of the world but this is not true! The only way to disprove this is for government to use red bricks on its projects. For example, Ekiti State inherited a red brick factory at Ire from the Old Ondo State. On the creation of the state, I wrote a policy paper on housing for the state government in which I had recommended (among other things) that the new state should make use of red bricks from the Ire factory for the building of the state secretariat, the governors lodge, house of assembly as well as residential quarters for the legislators.

If this was done, the state government would have demonstrated to the people that the red brick produced at Ire-Ekiti is as good as cement blocks. That would have encouraged the citizens of the state to patronise the factory thereby keeping it alive and employing many hands. The factory is now dead due to lack of patronage.

There is need to deemphasize the importance of cement in our construction industry by looking at alternative materials as earlier mentioned above. Until this is done, the price of cement will continue to soar since construction activities will continue to increase. There is nothing wrong in using stabilized mud wall for building. The primary school I attended was built about 1954 with mud walls. It is still standing there today 57 years on! This was ordinary mud walls not stabilized at all. A stabilized mud wall can last a century if plastered and painted to prevent water percolation.

In conclusion, the Federal government should look seriously into the cement issue since as at now, we cannot do without it in all our construction activities. Is anybody listening? I doubt!

Kola Akomolede (kolakoms@yahoo.com)

Chairman, Faculty of Housing, NIESV.

Chief Kola Akomolede, Principal Partner

A client had wanted to buy a flat at the 1004 Estates recently and I took him out on inspection at the estate. He would not buy because the flats have no BQ! Another was to buy a duplex house at Lekki but declined because it has only one room BQ. All these reminded me of another client who wanted to buy a house in Central London. His request was for a 3 or 4 Bedroom House with 2 Rooms BQ! I tried to explain to him that houses in London do not usually have BQs but he would not understand! Nigerians have become so accustomed to having BQs that they will want to have it even in London or New York.

So what is a BQ and what is the origin? The word BQ is an abbreviation for “Boys Quarters” or Servants Quarters as it now houses “house maids” as well as “house boys”. It is one of the colonial creations in Africa! You will not find it in the UK or the USA. Our colonial masters who lived in exclusive areas called GRAS. (Government Reservation Areas); needed the services of Nigerians as cooks or stewards; but would not live in the same house with the black man! Therefore a separate building, usually built at a distance from the main house, is put up at a corner at the far rear end of the plot to accommodate the black man. He would be called by a call bell to come to the main house whenever his services were needed. Sometimes he has his own entrance by which he could go in and out of the BQ without going through the main compound.

On independence, our black brothers who took over from the colonial masters inherited these houses and continued with the practice. Hence when such people wanted to build their own houses even outside the GRA, they insisted that the design must have a BQ. This is how gradually BQ became a permanent and usual part of our design of houses! Consequently, every house even in the villages must have a BQ otherwise, it is not complete. Talk to a typical Nigerian about a house not having a BQ, his answer is where will the house maid, the driver, the cook, the steward, etc, stay if you do not have a BQ? But what is wrong in these people staying inside the house with us? Unlike the white man who would not live with a black man under the same roof, why can’t we do away with this colonial mentality and treat domestic servants as brothers and sisters?

Again this matter is one of the fall outs of our housing policies. Why must the domestic servants live with you in the first instance? The answer is simple. The rich or big man who requires the services of these people live in areas very far from any accommodation that the poor can afford! For example, where in Ikoyi, Victoria Island or Lekki can they get accommodation near their bosses if there are no BQs? For this reason, a lot of these people are finding it difficult to retain their drivers unless they are ready to pay through their noses. Why, because most of the drivers have to live too far away resulting in spending too much as transportation and other inconveniences like getting home too late and still have to leave home too early in the mornings! If our housing estates had been planned in such a way that the rich and the poor can exist side by side, this problem could have been avoided! Then these necessary hands could live in their houses and come and work in their Ogas house and go back home to their own families.

Even till today, our housing estates are still planned as if the low income do not matter. Whereas our own lives are not complete without them! They not only serve us in the houses, they also serve in our offices as office attendants, clerks, cleaners and guards. Some of them live too far away from their work places so much that half of their salaries is spent on transportation! In addition, because of the long and tortuous transportation, they get to work already exhausted having jumped from one bus to another. You do not expect such person to give his best at work. There is also no concentration in the few hours before closing. He is anxious to leave early and the thought of the trauma he will go through on the way home is a source of serious distraction! You do not expect any concentration at work during those hours! Even in the new city of Abuja, there is no provision for the low income! Asokoro, Maitama, Wuse and Garki are exclusively for the rich! The poor is therefore forced to live in the satellite villages which are far away with no train services or any good bus service as you will find alsewhere. This is why a BQ is a necessity in all houses in those areas.

There is therefore the need to review our housing estate plans to take into account these challenges. The rich cannot exist without the poor as they depend on them for services which are essential to their good living. We can only do without BQs when we address the housing needs of the poor along with that of the rich.

The problem is even becoming more serious with the policy of the Federal Government in the last twelve years to leave housing entirely in the hands of the private sector! We all know that housing for the poor or low income is not a profitable venture and therefore not attractive to the private sector that is profit driven. They have therefore concentrated on building for the rich only to the detriment of the poor! President Goodluck Jonathan must therefore address this area by giving a small part of his heart to finding solution to the problems of housing for poor in this society.

Chief Kola Akomolede

Chairman, Faculty of Housing, NIESV.