ENOUGH IS ENOUGH: HURIWA DEMANDS FCT RENT TRIBUNAL, SLAMS NATIONAL ASSEMBLY’S 27-YEAR FAILURE TO PROTECT ABUJA TENANTS FROM ECONOMIC PREDATORS

PRESS STATEMENT

Human Rights Writers Association of Nigeria (HURIWA)

ENOUGH IS ENOUGH: HURIWA DEMANDS FCT RENT TRIBUNAL, SLAMS NATIONAL ASSEMBLY’S 27-YEAR FAILURE TO PROTECT ABUJA TENANTS FROM ECONOMIC PREDATORS

The Human Rights Writers Association of Nigeria (HURIWA) is compelled to raise the alarm over the worsening reign of impunity in the Federal Capital Territory’s housing sector, where landlords have become laws unto themselves, imposing outrageous, arbitrary and extortionate rent increases with absolute disregard for justice, fairness and the economic realities confronting millions of Nigerians.
HURIWA unequivocally condemns the unchecked exploitation of tenants in Abuja and describes the current rental regime as one of the gravest forms of economic violence being perpetrated against citizens in the nation’s capital.
It is disgraceful that after nearly twenty-seven years of uninterrupted democratic governance, successive National Assemblies have shamelessly failed to enact a comprehensive legal framework regulating landlord-tenant relationships in the Federal Capital Territory. This legislative negligence has effectively abandoned millions of residents to the mercy of desperate profiteers masquerading as landlords, who arbitrarily determine rents without accountability, transparency or legal restraint.
Today, Abuja has become one of Africa’s most expensive cities in which to rent accommodation, not because of superior infrastructure or exceptional public services, but because government institutions have abdicated their constitutional responsibility to protect citizens from economic exploitation.
HURIWA is not speaking in abstraction. We have become direct victims of this institutional failure.
Without prior consultation, negotiation or mutual agreement, the landlord of the building housing the national headquarters of HURIWA arbitrarily increased the annual rent for our modest one-room office from ₦1 million to ₦3 million. This outrageous 200 per cent increment was imposed unilaterally and without any corresponding improvement in the facilities, infrastructure or services attached to the property.
We reject this unconscionable act of economic intimidation.
This is not negotiation. This is exploitation.
This is not commerce. It is profiteering.
This is not property management. It is economic oppression.
If a nationally recognised civil society organisation can be subjected to such brazen exploitation, one can only imagine the daily suffering of ordinary civil servants, pensioners, teachers, journalists, artisans, widows, market women, students and young families who lack the platform to speak out.
Across Abuja, landlords have transformed shelter—a fundamental human necessity—into an instrument of economic blackmail. Many now increase rents by 50, 100 or even 200 per cent without notice, justification or consultation. Tenants are routinely threatened with eviction if they dare question these arbitrary demands, while many buildings suffer from poor maintenance, dilapidated facilities, inadequate water supply, erratic electricity and crumbling infrastructure.
Yet tenants are expected to pay increasingly scandalous rents for deteriorating living conditions.
The consequences of this lawless rental culture are devastating.
Families are being displaced from communities they have lived in for years. Young professionals are abandoning the city centre for distant settlements because they can no longer afford accommodation. Businesses are shutting down under crushing overhead costs. Many workers now spend the bulk of their salaries on rent, leaving virtually nothing for food, healthcare, transportation or education.
The housing crisis is no longer merely an economic issue.
It has become a major human rights challenge.
It is fueling homelessness, deepening poverty, widening inequality, destroying small businesses, encouraging urban crime and creating conditions capable of triggering serious social instability if urgent intervention is not undertaken.
HURIWA therefore calls on the President of the Senate, the Speaker of the House of Representatives and every member representing the Federal Capital Territory to immediately commence legislative action establishing an independent Federal Capital Territory Landlords and Tenants Tribunal, backed by a robust legal framework capable of protecting both landlords and tenants.
The proposed Tribunal should possess statutory authority to mediate disputes, regulate arbitrary rent increases, discourage exploitative practices, protect landlords against defaulting tenants, guarantee due process before eviction and ensure that both parties operate within a transparent legal framework.
We also demand the establishment of an independent Landlords and Tenants Ombudsman to receive complaints, investigate abuses, resolve disputes through mediation and prevent avoidable litigation.
The era where landlords behave like emperors and tenants are treated as conquered subjects must come to an end.
HURIWA equally calls on the Minister of the Federal Capital Territory, Barrister Nyesom Wike, to convene an emergency stakeholders’ summit involving tenants’ associations, estate surveyors, consumer protection agencies, civil society organisations and landlords to fashion practical and sustainable solutions to Abuja’s worsening housing emergency.
Government cannot continue to celebrate infrastructural development while millions of residents are gradually being priced out of the city they help to sustain through their labour and taxes.
Housing is not a luxury.
It is not a privilege reserved for the wealthy.
Access to decent shelter is inseparable from the constitutional guarantee of the dignity of the human person.
History will not be kind to any government that watches helplessly while speculative greed renders thousands of hardworking Nigerians homeless.
The National Assembly must stop looking the other way.
Silence in the face of injustice amounts to complicity.
HURIWA will continue to mobilise public opinion, engage relevant institutions and pursue every lawful democratic avenue until Abuja tenants are rescued from this reign of economic intimidation and Nigeria finally adopts a fair, transparent and enforceable legal regime that balances the legitimate rights of landlords with the fundamental rights of tenants.

Signed:
Comrade Emmanuel Nnadozie Onwubiko
National Coordinator
Human Rights Writers Association of Nigeria (HURIWA)
July 7th, 2026