For prospective renters in Nigerian cities, especially Lagos, the struggles to get a house to live in are quite deep as there are many huddles on their way to achieving that. In recent time, a new dimension has been added to those huddles, thereby deepening the struggles.
Due largely to increasing demand and near-stagnant supply, landlords are making spurious demands from both intending and sitting tenants. They now bring up race or ethnicity in a rent situation where, many believe, it is neither relevant nor warranted.
The creeping of ethnic sentiments into Nigeria’s rental market underscores how deep the country has sunk into issues of ethnicity and religion which the political class in the country is exploiting to divide the people and also to advance their cause.
Close market watchers describe that development as curious, wondering why a landlord should ask someone who is desirous of renting his property which part of the country he or she comes from, or which tribe or ethnic group in Nigeria he or she belongs to.
“Yes, it happened to me, not long ago. When I felt I had lived long enough in my former compound, I decided to change address. I was sufficiently surprised when I saw a property I liked within my neighbourhood, and wanted to rent it, but couldn’t.
Without mincing words, the landlord told me he would not rent out his house to me because I am an Igboman,” Gideon Nwokedi, a Surulere resident working with an insurance firm in Victoria Island, lamented, describing the action as pure ethnic bias that gave him a rude shock.
Nwokedi wondered how, in a cosmopolitan city like Lagos, a landlord should be discriminating or whipping ethnic sentiments on house rent issues. He advised that ethnic bias or sentiments should not be allowed to creep into such a business as serious as landlord-tenant relationship.
Similarly, Macaulay Okafor was rejected by an Ikotun-Egbe landlady who told him point blank that her newly renovated two-bedroom apartments were whole for Yoruba people. Unlike Nwokedi’s case, Okafor was a victim of ethnic bias or Igbo phobia that is affecting innocent ones like him.
Commenting on the sad situation, Yemi Olakunle, an estate agency practitioner, attributed it to what he called “growing market trends” which, according to him, are arising from the forces of demand supply.
“It is a seller’s market in Nigeria and that gives landlords the grounds for their arrogant and discriminating stance and posturing. Demand far outweighs supply. Again, you have more people renting than those buying,” Olakunle explained to BusinessDay.
A new report on ‘The State of Lagos Housing Market (Vol. 3),’ launched by the Roland Igbinoba Real Foundation for Housing and Urban Development (RIRFHUD), confirms the dire situation in the Lagos rental market.
The report which reveals that Lagos housing deficit has increased by 15 percent, from approximately 2.95 million units in 2016 to 3.4 million in 2025, notes that over 70 percent of Lagos residents are renters, with many spending between 40 percent and 60 percent of their income on rent.
The rent burden, according to the report, is highest in areas like Lekki, Ikoyi, and Victoria Island, where luxury apartment prices continue to rise despite broader economic challenges. But that burden, in reality, is now everywhere as residents of the city’s suburbs are also groaning over rising rent.
The rent situation in the city is such that everybody everywhere is lamenting. Many take to the social media to express their frustration with the activities of both landlords and estate agents.
Writing on her X (formerly Twitter, Moe (@Mochievous) says “Rent in Lagos is ridiculous – everyone is being priced out. There has to be some sort of control, especially as we pay yearly. I moved into a house and, nine months into my lease, the owners slammed me with a 150 per cent increase.”
In the same vein, Oku (@oku_yungx) blamed the “rent‑spiral” on intermediaries rather than bricks and mortar, saying, “house agents encourage landlords to raise rents so they can pocket higher commissions. Workers are forced to live ever farther away from their jobs. The system is rigged – people are wired to hustle just to survive, not to thrive.”
But landlords have their defence, explaining why they increase rents. “Everything you need to keep a property habitable has doubled or tripled,” says a property owner, who did not want his name mentioned.
He cited figures from the Nigerian Institute of Building which shows that a 50-kilogramme bag of cement which sold for roughly N4,000 in January 2023 now sells for above N9,500—an increase of more than 120 per cent.
“Reinforcement rods, plumbing fittings and electrical cables have followed a similar trajectory, fueled by a naira devaluation that makes imported inputs painfully costly,” he said, adding, “our last repainting bill was ₦5million more than the 2021 job for the same house. If rents do not adjust, preventive maintenance simply stops.”
“Power is another drain. Since the removal of fuel subsidy in May 2023, diesel required to run boreholes and estate generators now gulps an outsized share of landlords’ budgets,” he fumed. (BusinessDay)
