Landlord Tests Lagos Tenancy Law, Ejects 18 Tenants

A Lagos landlord, Nurudeen Ogunade of 3, Alhaji Saka Street, Ilasamaja, Lagos State, Southwest Nigeria, may be putting to test the newly signed tenancy law when he ejected 18 tenants yesterday with the aid of thugs and hoodlums.

One of the tenants, Mrs. Mosunmola Adagunduro, a trader who raised the alarm, said she was at Oshodi when someone informed her that thugs, hoodlums and fake policemen were at her residence in an apparent move to eject all the tenants in the 18-room storey building.

“I had to abandon what I was doing at Oshodi market and rushed home. I met other tenants outside the house, their properties and mine have already been vandalised by the thugs,” Mrs. Adagunduro told P.M.NEWS this morning.

According to her, items lost to hoodlums include jewellery, clothes, phones, laptop, a travelling bag and N500,000 cash her children gave to her to rent another house.

Other tenants in the house also claimed they lost sums of money ranging from N115,000 to N1.2 million to the invaders.

A widow, Mrs. Anike Adegoke, said the N1.2 million was donated to her to complete her husband’s building when he died a few months ago.

The total money lost to the thugs was N3.9 million, according to claims the tenants made at the Area ‘D’ Police Headquarters, Mushin, Lagos, where the matter was reported.

Narrating her ordeal to P.M.NEWS, Mrs. Adegoke said she was in the room when the thugs rushed in, threatened to break her head with a hammer after which they bundled her out of the room.

She said: “They claimed they were from Alausa with an instruction from Lagos State Governor, Babatunde Fashola to demolish the house.”

The landlord, Nurudeen Ogunade, was promptly arrested and detained at the police headquarters.

The investigating police officer, simply called Corporal Emeka, said the landlord claimed those who carried out the demolition were from Alausa secretariat, Ikeja and that the state governor was aware of the exercise.

Meanwhile, Ogunade was still with the police as at press time this afternoon.

—Dedeigbo Ayodeji