Atiku Calls For Wage-Reflective Tenancy Laws

The presidential candidate of the African Democratic Congress (ADC), Atiku Abubakar has called for rent regulation in the country to prevent crisis between landlords and tenants.

Atiku who was reacting to an attack by a tenant in Benin City, Edo State capital, who allegedly beat and broke his landlord’s head for increasing his rent from N300,000 to N1 million, said no rent dispute should end in blood.

The former Vice President in a statement on X on Sunday, called for calm, stating however that the viral scenes from Benin City spoke of pain of tenants across the country, due to sudden increases in house rent.

He called on state governments to adopt wage-reflective tenancy laws to avoid such ugly incident.

The statement read:

“No rent dispute should ever end in blood, and I urge calm on all sides.

“Yet the viral scenes from Benin City speak to a pain that young renters across Nigeria know well: sudden increases, arbitrary charges, and nowhere fair to turn.

“I will require states to adopt wage-reflective tenancy laws, regulate excessive upfront rent demands, set clear rules for rent increases and evictions, and create fast, accessible dispute resolution for landlords and tenants alike.

“A roof over one’s head should not be a battlefield. – AA”