Rent Control in Lagos will never work, says Lecturer

– Adeola Adeyemo

The state government says it could review some sections of the Tenancy Law PHOTO/NEXT

Oluwole Smith, a Professor of Law at the University of Lagos and former Dean of Faculty of Law, Lagos State University, has said that the Lagos State Tenancy Law is one which has too many loopholes and is bound to fail.

Mr Smith, who said this recently in Lagos at a dinner held to celebrate his elevation to the Senior Advocate of Nigeria, added that considering the accommodation deficit in Lagos, rent control was not the issue to be addressed.

“The issue of rent control can never work,” he said. “We’ve had it since the 70s; Mobolaji Johnson, for example, as the Governor of Lagos State. But we’ve discovered that those laws became white elephant sooner than they were enacted and I want to see this law as suffering the same fate for two reasons.

“The first one is there is acute shortage of accommodation and prospective tenants would either take the position of the landlord or leave it. So it’s either you want the accommodation and you take it, or you don’t want it and you leave it,” said Mr Smith.

He added that landlords have nothing to lose from the law.

“When you have a scenario where the landlord sees a prospective tenant, he says are you ready to play ball or not? This house belongs to me; it does not belong to Fashola. Is it Fashola’s house you want or my own house?”

He advised that the state government should provide mortgage schemes that would assist the poor in getting houses. For Mr Smith, the problem is not with the landlord hiking rent, the problem is with the inability of the government to provide true low cost housing that would take care of the poor.

“All these boils down to social problems,” he said. “Law cannot be divorced from the social reality of the society, and that is what the House of Assembly failed to realise. Any law which is at variance with the socio-economic circumstances will fail. We know as a matter of fact that there is no serious housing policy being financed by the Lagos State government.

“Thirdly and lastly, there is need for us to do our investigation, make the necessary inquiries, set up a panel to look at this problem, and come up with a report that will kind of strike a balance between the interest of the landlord and the tenant, rather than a law being promulgated to enforce what is not enforceable. The issue of rent control in Lagos state has never worked and it will not work,” said Mr Smith.

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