Former minister of power, works and housing, Babatunde Fashola, has urged state governments to review their tenancy laws and make landlords collect rents on a monthly basis.
He made this call on Thursday in Lagos, during the launch of his book titled “Nigerian Public Discourse: The Interplay of Empirical Evidence and Hyperbole”.
According to him, many tenants are suffering from the burden of paying rents in advance for three years or more, which also contributes to the low occupancy rate of many houses.
He stressed the need for accurate data to guide policy making and planning in the country, describing data as the “most important currency in the world, which no central bank could print”.
“That is not the only reason, but if you do not understand how dramatic and painful that three, four or five years rent has become to our nation, we have not consciously done anything to it,” he said.
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“Can we bring it down from three years to one year? Can we hopefully bring it down to six months? Can we let it coincide with when people get paid? At the end of the month instead of in advance?
“So accurate data will help us determine how many we are, what amount of water we need, what quantity of food, data makes this very important, accurate data therefore will be beneficial for us.
“Life without shortage of basic needs, like food, like water, like shelter and energy will be a good life, and data is critical to this objective.”
The book reviewer, Opeyemi Agbaje, a writer and scholar, praised Fashola for writing a thoughtful and analytical book that debunked hyperbolism, fallacies and myths on various issues affecting Nigeria.
He said the 16-chapter book covered topics such as corruption, poverty, the Nigerian constitution, minimum wage and governance, among others.
He advised Nigerians, especially the media, to seek correct facts, statistics and data, noting that hyperbole could thrive if the people were undereducated with the right facts.
He added that Fashola, in the book, acknowledged that there is a lot of misinformation in the public sphere, which the book aimed to correct.
The book launch was attended by Fashola’s wife, Abimbola, representatives of the federal executive council, Obafemi Hamzat, the deputy governor of Lagos, and Adejoke Orelope-Adefulire, the former senior special assistant to the president on sustainable development goals.