THE IMPERATIVE OF LAND REFORM
There is urgent need to review the Land Use Act
The Federal Capital Territory (FCT) Minister, Nyesom Wike recently made some significant changes in land administration. He approved the immediate revocation of plots of land, gave people a three-month grace period to commence development of their property, inaugurated a task force to review public complaints on the land swap policy and expressed his concerns about fake Certificates of Occupancy. While these efforts are commendable, they cannot achieve the intended result until there is a total reform of land administration in Nigeria. Effective land reforms will improve livelihoods, maximise the land market, and create more efficient systems. We hope the current administration of President Bola Tinubu will make that part of its legislative agenda.
All over the world, land is such a vital resource that it determines the wealth of nations, individuals, and society, influences the balance of power and how resources are used and managed. The contest for land has also led to wars and age-long conflict that government must be involved in its management. In Nigeria, the law that government uses to manage land resources is the Land Use Act of 1978. This 45-year-old legislation was passed under the military and has not been reviewed since then. The last time a president showed significant interest in land reforms was under the late Umaru Musa Yar’Adua but he couldn’t complete the process before he died.
By the law currently in operation, the power over the land within the territory of a state is vested in the governor. While we know that the governors have assumed their full powers based on the vesting done by this law, there is little to show they have managed the powers as trustees nor have allocated land in a fair and transparent manner. That Nigeria is currently ranked 186th out of 190 countries on the World Bank Ease of Doing Business index in terms of ease of registering properties is a reflection on land management. States such as Kaduna, Nasarawa and Kano have tried to carry out reforms of the land system with some minimal results.
Nigeria needs land reforms that will improve land administration, create an equitable system that will lead to affordability, improved land titling and property registration procedure and reduce corruption in the land market. According to PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC), about $900 billion, which is twice Nigeria’s GDP, can flow into the economy if we get our land reforms right. The PwC report claims that the real estate market alone holds between $230 billion and $750 billion of value that is locked up. To do this, there is an urgent need to review the Land Use Act. The enormous power granted the governor needs to be reduced and an accountability framework created to ensure the Governor continues to function as a real trustee.
Land reforms requires a lot of thinking, a definition of clear objectives, the creation of the right instruments, the development of effective administrative mechanism, improved governance, and processes to drive inclusion, transparency, and efficient customer service. Sustained land reforms cannot be based on knee-jerk reactions or attempts to become popular. The urgent task to unlock the wealth in our land resources cannot be delayed. Fortunately, the work done by the Presidential Technical Committee on Land Reforms, led by Prof. Peter Adeniyi, is still in place. The draft bill may only need to be reviewed.
According to the World Bank, land reform involves changing the institutional structure. This includes a review of how access to land is regulated, property rights are defined, and ownership conflicts are resolved. We therefore hope that President Tinubu will collaborate with the National Council of States to make land reform a priority of his administration.
