“… Section 1(4) of the Act reads as follows- “(4) “Premises” for the purpose of this section, and where used elsewhere in this Act or any enactment amended by this Act unless the context otherwise requires, means “a building of any description occupied or used by persons for living or sleeping or other lawful purposes, as the case may be, whether or not at any time it is also occupied or used under any tenancy as a shop or a store, and the expression includes any room or other part of a building of not less than one hundred square feet of floor space separately let or sublet as the case may be, for any such purpose.” This replaced the provision in Section 3(1) of the Rent Restriction Act which reads- “3(1) Unless and until the same be modified or extended by any Order made under the provisions of Section 1 the expression “premises” shall for the purpose of this Ordinance include any dwelling-house and any other building in which persons dwell, whether or not a part thereof is used as a shop, and any part of any premises let or sub-let separately, and if the definition of the expression “premises” has been extended by Order under Regulation 3 of the Nigeria Defence (Increase of Rent)(Restriction) Regulations, 1942, in respect of any area or areas in Nigeria, the expression “premises” shall for the purposes of this Ordinance, be deemed to include this extended definition in respect of the area or areas in Nigeria to which such order applied”, but that definition had in fact been vastly extended for Lagos by the Definition of Premises (Lagos Township Extension) Order (Order 22 of 1942) where the expression “premises” was extended to mean “any dwelling-house, flat, factory, warehouse, office, counting-house, shop, school and any other building in which persons dwell or are employed or work and any part of such premises let or sublet separately”. The important question that had to be determined in this matter was therefore, whether premises used partly for living and partly as a night-club fall within the definition of “premises” in Section 1(4) of the Act. As to this, all the learned trial judge said in his judgment was- “On a consideration of the definition of the word ‘premises’ in this case, since it has not been argued that the use to which the property has been placed is unlawful, then it must be held that the property which is the subject matter of this case comes within the provisions of the Rent Control (Lagos) Act and comes within the definition of the word ‘premises’.”
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