The National Union of Tenants of Nigeria (NUTN) has made an urgent appeal to Governor Siminalayi Fubara of Rivers State to intervene in the rapidly deteriorating housing crisis gripping the Port Harcourt and Obio/Akpor local government areas.
In a formal letter signed by the union’s Executive Secretary, Ceaser Enwefah, and delivered on Monday, the union warned that the housing situation has spiraled into a full-scale crisis impacting over 1.5 million residents.
The group emphasized that immediate executive action is required to protect citizens from predatory real estate practices.
According to the union, an acute housing deficit has been severely exacerbated by the indiscriminate approval of building plan amendments and the unchecked conversion of residential buildings into commercial properties.
Enwefah further alleged that a syndicate of landlords and unregistered house agents is actively conspiring to exploit this artificial shortage, forcing excessive rent hikes onto desperate tenants.
To curb this trend, the NUTN has called on Governor Fubara to suspend all further residential-to-commercial property conversions and freeze rent increases until a comprehensive policy directive can be established.
The financial strain on residents has reached unsustainable levels, with roughly 80 percent of the local population—including civil servants, private sector workers, self-employed individuals, and retirees—now spending more than their total earnings on accommodation.
The union highlighted glaring disparities where civil servants earning the N70,000 monthly national minimum wage (N840,000 annually) face rents as high as N900,000 per year for a simple self-contained apartment.
Meanwhile, the cost of a basic double-room apartment has skyrocketed from N120,000 to N520,000 annually, and one-bedroom flats have surged from N300,000 to an astronomical N1.5 million
Warning that the crisis could deepen poverty and trigger severe social unrest, Enwefah stressed that affordable housing is a fundamental constitutional right and a benchmark of international living standards.
He noted that past attempts to address these grievances through the Rivers State Ministry of Housing were met with bureaucratic silence, urging the governor to immediately deploy a substantive or supervisory commissioner to oversee the ministry.
The NUTN concluded its appeal by presenting a strategic roadmap to the governor, framing it as a vital intervention to rescue countless families from crushing economic hardship.
