PROPERTY NGOs presence jerk up rent in Maiduguri
The influx of non-governmental organizations (NGOs) coming to Maiduguri, the Borno State capital, to render humanitarian services to Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) living in various camps and host communities in the state has been identified as one of the major causes of the hike in renting property in the state.
Residents complained that the hike in renting big properties, the type the NGOs go for in Maiduguri may soon affect the cost of renting the normal dwelling houses and other buildings used for commercial purposes even when businesses that folded up in the state as a result of insurgency are yet to resume.
A painter, Istifanus Zira, told this reporter that some of the buildings he was contracted to repaint for NGOs to use as offices carry expensive and unbelievable rent tags, saying the cost of renting some of them is five times over.
“I renovated three properties for NGOs here in Maiduguri within the past six months. What I saw and heard about the cost of rent and renovation scared me. There was a property along Damboa road in Maiduguri that some civil servants were renting a flat at N320,000 per annum. The compound had four flats of three bedrooms each. The landlord came overnight and gave the tenants two weeks’ notice to vacate. They had between two to three months left for their tenancy agreement to expire. He refunded one year rent to each of them.
“It was when I was repainting the house that the estate manager told me that the property was rented by an NGO for N18 million per year. Can you imagine? There is also the property of a former governor of this state that an NGO rented at N25 million and brought technicians from abroad to come and fix their equipment and even sink borehole for them.
“You cannot rent a good property now along Damboa road, the type an NGO would like unless you have their kind of money,” he said.
Elder Olumide Aino of Lagos-based Fayemi Fortune Properties said he was in the state to get an office accommodation for an NGO from Netherlands, saying, “I cannot take you to the property because they may not want any publicity about it. All I can tell you is that we got the property at the range of N20 million around Damboa road and a compound with two flats around Pompomari area where the landlord has agreed to construct a swimming pool and a garden. We got that one at N14 million a year.”
He said the good thing about the property in Maiduguri is that they are built on large expanses of land with enough space for expansion and most of the buildings are solid, he said adding, “We are giving the landlords good prices because we do not want to hear of increment of rent or notice to vacate because of low prices.”
Efforts to speak to some of the NGOs with offices in Maiduguri were not successful as some of the supporting staff found in the offices claimed they do not know how their bosses got the property, saying either their bosses have traveled out of the country or that they are staying in Abuja or Lagos and only come to Maiduguri when they have something to do.
However, a foreign humanitarian worker with one of the NGOS who pleaded for anonymity because he did not have the permission of his director to speak to the press said they usually go for big property as offices for convenience and also for their sponsor to have a good place to stay and work when they visit.
“It may also interest you to note that some of the NGOs operating in the state have teamed up to hire a helicopter that we are using to access IDPs and other vulnerable people in remote areas where we cannot easily access with cars. A good accommodation is very vital for our operations. Some of the prices you are mentioning that you think is big money may not be that big when you convert to dollars. We pay higher for similar property elsewhere,” he said.
A para-military officer, Dayo Olu, said he was living in a single room at N1,200 per month before he moved to a N60,000 two-bedrooms flat per year when his family came to join him from Ilorin.
“Nothing will happen that residential accommodation will ever be a problem in Maiduguri. Look at the Legacy housing estate with thousands of vacant flats yet to be occupied.
“The state governor coming from the banking industry knows the value of property. I think Borno State has the highest number of public housing estates built by any state within the past six years. I commend this administration for that,” he said.