By Aare Amerijoye DOT.B
Every Nigerian knows the sound. Three slow knocks at dawn. The landlord at the door, notice in hand, and the whole compound watching from behind their curtains. Nobody argues with that knock. It does not matter how loudly the tenant has boasted, how many visitors he has received in the parlour, or how often he has spoken of the house as if his father built it. When the owner knocks, the tenant remembers what he is.
That knock is coming to Aso Rock.
The Villa was not inherited. It was not bought. It cannot be bequeathed to a son or a political godchild. It belongs to Nigeria, to more than 200 million owners who have never once handed over the title. Whoever sleeps there holds it in trust, and the trust has a date on it.
For President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, that date is 16 January 2027.
THE TENANT WHO RAISED THE LANDLORD’S RENT
In every other house in this country, it is the landlord who raises the rent. In Aso Rock, the tenant raised it on the landlord.
He did it on his first day. On 29 May 2023, before the applause at Eagle Square had died, he declared that “subsidy is gone”. He was not proposing. He was pronouncing. There was no framework for the owners to examine, no cushion for the poor, no warning to the mother who would board the same bus the next morning and find the fare doubled.
Within weeks the pump price had nearly tripled. In June the naira was floated, and within a year it had lost more than half its value in the pockets of people who have never held a dollar. In 2024 the electricity tariff for Band A customers was more than tripled. In the same season, a new aircraft joined the presidential fleet.
Read that again slowly. The landlord was told to tighten his belt. The tenant bought a new aeroplane.
Every decision was taken inside the house. Every bill was sent to the people outside it.
THE LANDLORDS HAVE FACES
Who are these owners the tenant has forgotten?
She is the market woman in Kano who opens her stall at dawn and closes at dusk with less than she came with, because whatever she sold today will cost more to replace tomorrow. He is the Igbo apprentice in Onitsha who served his master faithfully for 7 years, waiting for the settlement that would make him a man of his own, only to be told there is nothing left to settle him with.
He is the Tiv farmer outside Makurdi who stands at the edge of the land his grandfather cleared and cannot walk into it without fear. She is the Ebira teacher in Okene whose salary is gone by the second week, who still stands before 40 children every morning and tells them that learning pays. She is the widow in Ado Ekiti who once bought garri by the bag and now buys it by the cup.
These are not statistics. These are the landlords. And the landlords are awake.
A tenant who makes the landlord suffer does not get his lease renewed.
THE NOTICE IS ALREADY WRITTEN
The owners hold a title document no tenant can forge, no court can confiscate and no money can buy. It is small enough to fit in a wallet. It is called the Permanent Voter’s Card.
On 16 January 2027, from the creeks of Bayelsa to the dunes of Yobe, the owners will walk to their polling units and serve notice the only way Nigerians own. Not with stones. Not with fire. With a thumb pressed in ink, polling unit by polling unit, until the whole country speaks with one voice.
THE NEXT OCCUPANT HAS REFERENCES
A wise landlord does not eject one tenant only to admit a stranger. He asks for references. He asks in what condition the last house was left.
Atiku Abubakar has lived in that compound before. For 8 years as Vice President he chaired, by law, both the National Economic Council and the National Council on Privatisation. In those years Nigeria’s reserves rose from 3.7 billion dollars to about 45 billion. The country settled with the Paris Club and walked out of its debt in 2006. He left the store fuller than he found it.
And this time he has done what the present occupant never did. He has placed his plans before the owners in writing, as working documents they can examine, question and test before a single key changes hands.
One man pronounced from the podium. The other has published to the people.
THE KNOCK
So let the tenant enjoy the parlour a little longer. Let him polish the furniture and receive his visitors. Let him speak of the house as if it were his.
But let him listen at dawn.
The owners are gathering at the gate, notice in hand, and on 16 January 2027 they will knock three times.
Tinubu, you are a tenant there.
TenantNotOwner #Atiku2027 #ADC
Aare Amerijoye DOT.B
Director General, The Narrative Force
thenarrativeforce.org
25 September 2026
