LAND ADMINISTRATION REFORM NIGERIAN: ISSUES AND PROSPECTS

Project Abstract

<p>             <b>ABSTRACT&nbsp;</b><br></p><p> The Federal Republic of Nigeria is located in West Africa and it is bordered in the south by the Gulf of Guinea on the Atlantic Ocean, in the West by the Republic, in the east by Cameroons and Chad, and in the north by Niger Republic. Nigeria is a federal constitutional republic comprising thirty-six states and its Federal Capital Territory, Abuja. Nigeria is the largest country in West Africa and the most populous country in Africa, the eighth most populous country in the world with a population of over 140 million. It has an area of about 923,768 km2 of which the land area is about 910,768km2 and 13,000km2 is water. It has coastal line of about 853 km. The topography varies from the southern low lands which merges into the hills and plateaus in the centre. The east is mostly mountainous, while the north is plain. The altitude ranges from sea level at the Atlantic to 2419m at Chappal Waddi. The climate is equatorial in the south, tropical in the middle and semi-arid in the north. Nigeria is mainly an agrarian society and until oil was discovered some 50 years ago, agriculture used to be the principal foreign exchange earner for the country. Even now that the economy is dominated by the oil and gas sector, 60% of the workforce is employed in the agricultural sector largely dominated by non-commercial farming. The land use pattern is estimated as follows arable land is about 33% of the total land area, permanent pastures cover 44%, permanent crops cover 3%, forest and woodlands 12%, and others 8%. Thus land is still the main asset of the rural Nigerians where over 80% are peasant farmers; however this asset has not been fully utilized for economic empowerment because they do not have proper records and titles that can be used as collateral to raise capital. It is in an attempt to economically empower the vast majority of Nigerians, who are rural dwellers, by turning their land holdings to economic capital, that the current Federal Government of Nigeria initiated the Land Reform Agenda. <br></p>

Project Overview

<p> <b>1. INTRODUCTION&nbsp;</b></p><p>Land is a basic natural resource. It supports all human activities and it is from it that all other economic resources are derived. It can hardly be renewed or increased without adverse consequences, and therefore must be judiciously and efficiently managed in a sustainable manner for the use and good of all. It is for this reason that different countries the world over have evolved land tenure systems to protect various “interests” in land and for effective land governance and management. Several land tenure systems had been operated in various regions of Nigeria from the colonial era to the promulgation of the Land Use Act in 1978. The proposed land reform programme of the Federal government is an attempt to address, in a holistic manner, the inadequacies of the subsisting land tenure systems so as to make it a veritable vehicle of economic empowerment and development. Land administration is the process of regulating land and property development and the use and conservation of the land, the gathering of revenues from the land through sales, leasing and taxation, and the resolving of conflicts concerning the ownership and use of the land (Dale and McLaughlin 1999). The major goals objective of any (ideal) land administration reforms are among others, to ensure that (Dale 2007):  There are secure dealings in land.  The cost of transactions is kept low.  There is access to credit.  There is transparency in all dealings.  There is easy access for all participants, poor or rich.  Minority rights are protected.  Environmental sustainability is supported. The objective of the above “ideal” land administration system is to create an open market economy in which land is transformed into an economic commodity. There is no country in Africa and developing countries whose land tenure system satisfies any of the objectives of the above ideal land policy. At best what some of these countries have is “urban cadastre” for the affluent. And that explains why the majority of the citizens of these countries, the rural dwellers, remain poor despite the fact that they have assets – land; and until the governments of these countries start to commoditise the assets of their citizens they will continue to remain poor with attendant adverse consequences on the economy of these nations. Underlying each of the above of any land reform is a fundamental need for reliable geoinformation, a developed cadastre, appropriate information communication technology (ICT) and good governance systems. The success or otherwise of any land administration reform depends on the flow of information relating to land and property between different government agencies and between these agencies and the public. This can be achieved through appropriate Land Information System (LIS) and National Spatial Data Infrastructure system (SDI), which should be the goal of any nation that is serious about land reform. In this paper the evolution of land tenures system in Nigeria is presented and discuss, the current land reform programme of the Federal Government which aims at transforming Nigeria into a land market economy is also presented and the objectives of the programme discussed. The need to employ a sound technical approach in the implementation is also highlighted and discussed. <br></p>