By Our correspondent
Ms Adaeze Ndu was frustrated when she approached a house agent to inquire about three -bedroom flat apartment anywhere in Awka, including Amawbia.
The agent told her that the one available in Awka was N700,000 per annum; but she will have to pay for two years which will be N1.4 million.
” If you add agent and lawyer’s fees it will be about N1.6 million,” the agent said.
Adaeze who was newly transferred from Lagos to Awka as a public servant was further dazed when she inquired from the agent the reason for such hike in rent , and she was giving a factual but worrisome reply; “madam, if you can’t rent it, those who will rent it will do so without delay”
The agent attributed the skyrocketing house rent to cyber-criminals popularly known as yahoo boys who had invaded the area.
Speaking to our correspondent, Adaeze said, “The situation is getting worse. Nobody wants to think about how we eat again; all they are concerned about is money.
“They just decide to increase without thinking of the poor. Where will I take my children to? We are just managing a place with a friend; we have yet to get money to rent a place, and I just came here to see the agent with faith and the amount he is telling me, I don’t know how to go about it.
” I had thought I could get such size of apartment in Awka for N300,000 or N400,000. But everywhere I go I keep hearing about yahoo boys being preferred by landlords because they can pay any amount for even five years. This is not good. Where is our society moving to?” Adaeze said in frustration.
She said for two weeks she had been looking for an apartment that would house her and her children in Awka without success.
A respondent who spoke with correspondent said,
“Na them( Yahoo boys) dey make house rent dey go up. Imagine three-bedroom flat in Okpuno N1million; two bedroom flat N650k.
Another, respondent said, ” They (Yahoo boys ) are even neighbours to top security personnel. in Ifite area and parts of Agu Awka, Okpuno and Amawbia are their haven.”
Recently, security operatives in Nnewi raided some buildings suspected to be inhabitated by Yahoo boys and arrested no fewer than 30 of of them.
The EFCC had repeatedly warned house owners and commercial real estate agents against making properties available to cyber criminals and fraudsters.
