– Tenants: Increasing rent, service charges by 150% is crazy
– Management: They are mostly debtor tenants, owe FG N6 million
Dike Onwuamaeze
The Tafawa Belewa Square Management Board (TBSMB) and tenants at the Tafawa Belewa Square’s (TBS) complex, are on war path over the board’s unilateral increases in rent and service charges by 150 per cent and introduction of new tenancy agreement for existing tenants without their input.
The tenants also alleged that the TBSMB is denying them basic services like electricity and water for flushing their toilets and other needs as well as locking the gates of the complex against them.
The tenants said the TBSMB locked the major entrance and exit gates of the complex since April 28, thereby denying them and their clients free and unhindered access to their offices.
They therefore warned the TBSMB that “using self-help, intimidation, refusal to sell power to those who have paid for it and other such illegal actions do not help the management of the TBSMB but rather portrays your organisation as a non-law abiding organisation.”
According to the tenants, the management of the TBSMB on January 23, 2025, issued a “very important notice to all tenants,” informing them that “the new rent rate in the complex is now N25,000 per square meter (psm) and new service charge is now N10,000 psm,” without any input from them.
The notice added that the “management has been mandated by the government to take all necessary steps to recover revenue owed to the federal government.”
It also advised tenants to “make necessary efforts to pay up their outstanding and current rent.”
The Managing Director/Chief Executive Officer of TBSMB, Ms. Lucia Shittu, told THISDAY in an exclusive interview that the tenants owe the government N600 million in unpaid rents and service charges.
However, the Chairman of TBS Tenants’ Association (TBSTA), Commodore M. B. Babatunde (rtd), told THISDAY that the new increase in rent “amounts to craziness. Your tenant is in court over N10,000psm and you just overnight hiked the rent to N25,000psm. This has left us wondering why and what the problem is all about.”
Babatunde also advised members of the association to ignore the new rent and service charge.
Following the locking of the gates on April 28, 2025, the tenants’ association wrote the Assistant Inspector General of Police, Zone 2 Command Headquarters, Onikan, Lagos State, on April 30, 2025, appealing “for the urgent, timely and quick interventions of the police authorities to avert break down of law and order in the TBS Complex” over an alleged unlawful closure of TBS complex gates, disruption of lawful activities of tenants, threat to the properties of tenants, contempt of court and conducts of the TBSMB likely to cause breach of peace.
The letter, which was signed by Babatunde and the Vice Chairman, Mrs. I. Matebese, said that “all efforts by our members towards the amicable resolution of the dispute were not successful as a result of the noncooperation and rigid stance of TBSMB.”
The association accused the TBSMB of contempt of court in view of pending law suits as it “further took self-help and illegal actions against some tenants by cutting them off/denying them of light (electricity).
“We state that the illegal and self-help actions by TBSMB are capable of leading to breakdown of law and order.
“Our humble request is for the urgent intervention of the police authorities to forestall the possible and imminent breakdown of law and order, which the illegal actions of TBS Management led by its Managing Director/CEO in the person of Mrs. Lucia Shittu, is instigating,” the association wrote.
Responding to the allegations made by the tenants, Shittu told THISDAY that the relationship between the TBSMB and its tenants has been characterised by ups and downs even before her resumption of office.
She also made it clear that the TBS Tenants’ Association is not recognised by the TSBMB. “We do not, and I repeat, we do not recognise any association here. The TBS Tenants’ Association does not exist. Every tenancy agreement that has been signed here has been done on individual basis.”
Shittu said that she had to review the rent and service charge to bring them up to comparable levels with what is obtainable in the neighbourhood because the TSBMB has been operating at a loss.
She said: We have made the reviews, which are critical and essential even for the upkeep of this national monument. I think some of the rates are even dating back to 2010. So, a change is inevitable and unavoidable if we want improvements and that is what we did effective from January 2025.”
She added: “We have conducted a thorough market analysis and I was hit with the realties that we are not only underselling, but are depriving government of revenues due to not collecting at market standards.
According to her, it costs N40,000 and N35,000 to rent a square meter at the City Mall and Western House respectively, which are in the same vicinity with TBS where tenants are in court to keep paying N7,000psm.
Shittu urged the tenants to jettison the mindset that a government property should not be priced competitively.
“I think this is part of the problems. Our establishing Act is very clear that we will not treat government property differently. We are a revenue generating agency.
“The perception that this is a federal government property is wrong. It is time we change some things.
“As a businessman or woman, you have a choice to relocate if the property does not meet your standard,” Shittu said, adding that “only 30 out of close to 400 tenants have paid for their rents and service charges in 2024,” Shittu said.
She argued strongly that tenants do not have the right to ask for services they do not pay for.
She also explained that the non-payment of service charges by the tenants deprived the TBSMB of resources which prompted the locking up of some of the access gates.
She also alleged that several attempts had been made to hold meetings with the tenants to reconcile issues but to no avail because the tenants were not cooperating with the TBSMB.