•Landlords overprice properties in Abuja
It is widely believed that the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) lacks enough accommodation for its teeming population. But, surprisingly, Nduka Chiejina discovers that the city has many overpriced estates that are begging for tenants.
The Abuja landscape is dotted with state-of-the-art buildings that are unoccupied. These buildings are found mainly in Maitama, Asokoro, Katampe Extension and Wuse Two.
The history of unoccupied buildings dates back to the military era when some wealthy Nigerians and foreigners with connections to influential government figures acquired plots of land, developed and stayed in them. But, when they lost power and influence, they moved out of Abuja or tried to sell the property.
It is being alleged that most completed but unoccupied buildings belong to some people who illegally acquired huge wealth and cannot defend the sources. They include politicians and senior government officials accused of looting the treasury, who resorted to either buying property with their loots or simply acquiring new plots and developing them.
Many of such houses have remained unoccupied because the owners have placed them in the market at exorbitant rates and out of the reach of honest citizens with genuine interest to stay in such houses.
The Abuja city, referred to as the Federal Capital City (FCC) in the masterplan, has become a veritable ground for money launderers and suspected treasury looters and their desire to maintain a very high taste, in the absence of legitimate income, has left them with the option of demanding very high rents on their property.
Since most people cannot afford the tastefully finished houses, they are left largely unoccupied.
At the popular Area 11 junction, there is a massive estate, which people allege belongs to a former Head of State. The estate though has some tenants, many of the flats have remained unoccupied because of the high rent.
In Wuse Zone One, a large complex of apartments belonging to a famous business mogul from the Northwest, has been in the hands of squatters for almost 10 years and there appears to be nothing the businessman can do to change the situation. In fact, the squatters have partitioned the flats and are sub-letting portions of their flats to other ‘tenants.
In recent times, the Federal Capital Territory Administration (FCTA) had warned that it would levy ground rents on unoccupied buildings to force the owners to put the buildings up for rent, instead of having unoccupied buildings dotting the landscape, with their attendant risks; they could be flash points or hideouts for criminals.
Investigations showed that except where the landlord has a human face, it is virtually impossible to get a room and parlour for less than N450,000 per annum; and the more the number of rooms, the higher the price. There is no three-bedroom flat in the FCC that goes for less than N1.2 million per annum. Some landlords, agents and estate managers and valuers have cultivated the habit of demanding two years’ rent from prospective tenants.
In the satellite towns, because the demand far outstrips the supply, many owners and agents have resorted to demanding one-and -a-half or two years’ upfront payment from new tenants.
Another reason for the preponderance of unoccupied buildings in Abuja is the greed of registered and unregistered estate agents/valuers and developers. The tradition in the city is for estate agents and valuers to inflate the prices of properties in their care, most times without the knowledge of the owners.
The districts that have the most number of unoccupied buildings are Maitama and Asokoro. There, the owners are former government officials and some rich Nigerians and individuals of questionable character. The owners have been known to hand the buildings over to estate agents at a reasonable rate, but the greed of the agents have resulted to the buildings remaining in the market for years and, eventually, falling to ruins because the agents refuse to give them out at the rate the owners have instructed them.
It is difficult to see the owners of many houses in Abuja as agents in charge will not arrange a meeting between them and potential tenants.
These developments have led to a glut of houses in the FCC and many Nigerians are only waiting for the day something would happen to force a burst in the real estate market in Abuja, thus bringing down the prices of houses.
The wait may be long, but the fact remains that many buildings in Abuja City are wasting away while many Nigerians with genuine need for shelter are either forced to cough out large sums of money as rents, or they shelter in the satellite towns all of which are over crowded and lack basic amenities and infrastructure compared to the FCC.
The indomitable spirit of Nigerians can also be seen at play where some of these unoccupied houses have been taken over by illegal squatters who neither pay rent nor attempt to carry out repairs on the buildings when the need arises.
It is being envisaged that Abuja development may result in a property rate crash, the type that happened in the United States that reverberated as the global economic crunch.
However, the effect of it, if indeed it happens in Nigeria would be different, because most of the property owners are looters who are privately funded.
The effect of such a development would weigh more on the owners who will lose substantial part of their investment, rather than a national economic collapse, which resulted in the the in the early 2000s,
Gwarimpa district was noted for the high number of squatters occupying the government buildings, but when most of buildings changed hands many of the squatters were ejected from the FHA and now Gwarimpa has lost the tag of ‘squatters’ settlement.
The unoccupied building syndrome is not restricted to residential properties alone, many commercial buildings equally litter the city with vacant shopping and office spaces being more in number than those in business.
