If I could ask the Nigerian government to change one thing, it would be to finally rein in Ibadan’s unregulated house agents.
These people are thieves without guns, and I say that without apology, because a landlord puts up a house for #300,000 and an agent turns around and doubles the price for no reason anyone can justify.
Ask why, and you will hear the same tired and recycled excuse: “I am not the only agent assigned to this house”, as if that is supposed to be the tenant’s problem, or as if scarcity gives them the right to invent a price out of thin air.
A self- contained apartment that should go for a few hundred thousand naira is suddenly priced like a luxury flat, and somehow, this has become normal, something people just budget around instead of something people push back on.
Oyo State did amend its tenancy law this year to cap agent fees and force registration, so the framework technically exists – what is missing is the government actually making agents feel it, because right now the law is quiet and the agents are riding an unchecked wave of extortion.
