International Journal of Urban and Regional Affairs. Vol 4 no. 2. pp 15 -21

LAND ADMINISTRATION PROBLEMS IN NIGERIA:

CASE STUDIES OF OYO AND NIGER STATES

*Wole Morenikeji; ** Dayo Ayorinde and * Gideon Owoyele

* Urban and Regional Planning Department, Federal University of Technology,Minna

**Ministry of Land, Housing and Physical Planning, Ibadan

ABSTRACT

The paper examined the practices of land administration in –

Oyo and Niger States, in the light of the Land Use Decree of

1978. The paper observed that land administration in both

states is wrought with problems such as inability of the

states to meet the land requirements of the public, cumbersome

process of getting the right-of-occupancy, frequent changing

of public officers, poor record-keeping, inability of

government to pay compensation in respect of acquired land,

among others. These problems in turn were found to have

contributed to physical planning problems. In spite of the

decree, it was found that illegal land transactions are still

going on in both states and there is constant conflict between

the local government authorities and the town planning

department over the allocation of plots and use of land. The

paper therefore called for an urgent review of the appropriate

section of the decree to allow genuine property developers to

have access to larger plots of land, intensification of

planning education at the local government level,

encouragement of staff training in the field of Geographical

Information System (G.I.S) among others.

INTRODUCTION

Land, though ubiquitous, is fixed in quality and, like any

other goods of economic utility, is affected by the laws of

demand and supply. The demand by both the public and private

users of land for various uses such as residential,

transportation, commercials, institutional and agricultural in

both urban and rural centres require that land must be made

available at the right time, in the right quantity and quality

and at the right places. Thus, the issue of who controls the

land is very crucial to land development activities.

Prior to the promulgation of the Land Use Decree of 1978 in

Nigeria, there were no uniform land administration system. In

Northern Nigeria, land was communally owned and vacant plots

were allocated by the Chief or the Emir in whom the land was

vested. No individual had absolute title to land. The

traditional ruler held all land in trust for the use of the

whole community. In Southern Nigeria, a kind of dualism

existed in the ownership and control of land in which some

parts or the land in a community were owned by individual

families and others reserved for grazing, hunting, civic use

etc. was held in trust for the community and administered by

the traditional-ruler the Oba.

The system being practiced in the Northern Nigeria was akin to

the 1978 Land Use Decree hence the decree is relatively

successful in the North. For instance the Kano State Urban

Development Board Edict (No.5 of 1976) and the Land Use Decree

of 1978 are complimentary and both have enhanced the practice

of land use planning and administration in the state. In the

South, though most land were held under private trust, such

land were often subdivided in to layouts which were then

approved by the town planning authorities before the plots

were sold to individuals.

The Land Use Decree was therefore “the culmination of

government effort to streamline the land tenure system” in the

country (Ola, 1984). It represented, as commented by James

(1987) a shift from the colonially inspired laissez fair

policy of “dualism” in the Southern States to one of

“trusteeship”, and in the Northern States, a modification of

the inherited policy of “paternalism” to accord with the

“trusteeship” policy.

The decree, among other things, puts all land in urban areas

under the control and management of the governor of each state

and all other land under the Local Government in which the

land is situated. The governor working through the Land Use

and Allocation Committee has the power to grant statutory

rights of occupancy to any person for all purposes while the

Local Government working through Land Allocation Advisory

Committee has the power to grant customary rights of

occupancy.

The state now has the power to compulsorily acquire land

anywhere. The decree makes provision for the payment of

appropriate compensation, though not for the land per-se, but

for the development on land, for instance, buildings and

economic trees. To own a plot of land which is not more than

0.5 hectare in urban areas and 500 hectares and 5000 hectares,

respectively for farming and grazing in rural areas per

individual, a statutory Right of Occupancy and Customary Right

of Occupancy must first be obtained from the government

respectively with regard to urban and rural land. This paper

makes an attempt to examine the processes involved in securing

land for various uses in two different socio-political

environment vis-à-vis the provision of the Land Use Decree and

then to appraise the effects of the Decree on physical

planning in Nigeria.

EVALUATION OF LAND ADMINISTRATION PROCESS

Public ownership of land has been justified (Brocklebank et al

1972) on the ground that it would make for:

1. Easier access to and availability of land for development

when and where it is needed,

2. Increased efficiency of land use management through better

planning,

3. Greater social justice in the distribution of land

resources,

4. Control of land values and process and thereby land

speculations,

5. Maintenance of a healthy, sanitary environment, and

6. Insurance of security of tenure.

It is against this background that success or failure of

land reforms and administration can be evaluated. Observations

in many countries, especially the developing countries, have

shown the lofty objectives of land administration instruments,

such as Nigeria’s Land Use Decree, are hardly achieved. Only

in few countries are modest achievements made. Farvacque and

McAuslan (1992) have identified, in their comprehensive study,

a number of problems militating against successful land

policies, these are:

1. Over centralization of management and administration.

2. Inappropriate, over detailed and inflexible regulatory and

legal frameworks.

3. Lack of inappropriate use of resources and political will to

tackle problems,

4. Administrative systems lacking in efficiency, equity,

accountability and probity,

5. Failure or reluctance to encourage participation from the

urban poor.

The authors further note that the journey toward the lawful

acquisition of a plot of land is a long and confusing one.

Access to land, registration of land and permission to develop

the land involve time consuming, unduly cumbersome, and costly

procedures. This fact is buttressed by the examples of Peru

and Cameroon. In Peru, the authors note that the process of

adjudication process of state lands takes about 43 months and

is the result of 207 bureaucratic steps involveing 48

different government offices and in Cameroon only 100,000 (6%)

plots out of an estimated 1,600,00 plots country wide are

registered because of cumbersome registration process that

takes between two to seven years and lack of properly

maintained cadastral maps.

The nature of the problems of land administration in Nigeria

is bound to vary from one region to the other despite the

existence of uniform Land Use Decree. The reason, as mentioned

earlier, is because the two major component regions (North and

South) in the country were operating in and accustomed to, two

distinct land tenure system before the coming of the Land Use

Decree. It is the objective of this paper to examine the

operation of the system of land administration in Niger State

(Northern Nigeria) and Oyo State (Southern Nigeria) with a

view to identifying the problems and the effects of these

problems on development control in the two states.

METHODOLOGY

For the analysis and discussions, data and the relevant

information were collected from the records of the former

Ibadan Metropolitan Planning Authority, Oyo State Ministry of

Lands, Housing and Survey, Niger State Ministry of Works

(Lands and Town Planning Department). Secondary data were

collected from earlier works and government publications in

the two states.

RESULTS

Processing Certificate of Occupancy (C of O.) in Oyo State,

Southern Nigeria

The C. of O. duly signed by the governor of the state where

the land in question is located confer statutory right of

occupancy on the possessor and this entitles the owner right

to use the land for a period of 99 yeaars after which the C.

of O. can be renewed or the land revert back to the state. In

Oyo State, the application for C. of O. must be accompanied by

applicant’s receipts of development levy for three years, a

three year tax clearance certificate, a photocopy of deed of

conveyance (evidence of title), original copy of survey plan

and original land agreement.

These requirements raise a fundamental observation. By

demanding for deed of conveyance and original land agreement,

it implies that transaction in land is recognized to be taking

place on individual to individual basis rather than

individual/government basis. The true situation is that,

although the Decree made allowance for all land transactions

that had taken place prior to 1978, private transactions in

land is still continuing with people still buying land from

individuals and having the transaction backdated to period

before the effective date of the Decree, C. of O. is only

obtained for the purpose of validating the transaction.

At the commencement date, the Decree empowered the

government to compulsorily acquire all undeveloped plots

within all urban areas, however, till today, such vacant land

on their own and in fact buy from landlords before approaching

the government with application for the same plot already

purchased.

However, there are few state land some of which dated to

the colonial period and the supply of which is always lagging

behind the demand. Of the 579 applications received with

respect to state land between November 1994 and March 1995,

399 plots were allocated in Oyo State. Even, the number of

plots made available by the Local Planning Authorities that

are playing complementary roles to that of the state, have not

significantly improved the situation.

For instance, all the four schemes (residential and

industrial estates) framed by the old Ibadan Metropolitan

Planning Authority were done before 1978 (that is Oluyole

Estate 1962, Legelu Estate 1972, Oluyole Extension, 1973 and

Iwo Road Scheme 1976). All these comprised only about 1,161

hectares and about 3413 plots (Wole Merenikeji 1990).

Observation has shown that, not only are the plots made

available inadequate but that the few ones available mostly

benefit the well connected people in and of government. This

is particularly so for the state Land and Bodija, Links

reservation, Onireke and Jericho all in Ibadan, the state

capital.

Apart from the adequate supply of land, processing the C.

of O. itself is costly and cumbersome. The processing fee has

more than double between 1988 and 1995, for instance, the fee

for the application form has jumped from N10.00 in 1988 to

N200.00 in 1995. An average of 89 C. of O application was

received every month while an average of 52 were used between

January 1992 and March 1995 as shown in table 3. This means

t6he number of C. of O. issued in Oyo State can be attributed

to several factors.

Ideally, to process the C. of O. documents should not

take more than three months but in reality it takes between

one to three years,. The man or reasons identified during the

study are:

1. Inadequate monitoring of the application by the applicant

at every important stage during processing. To the

western observers, this factor may sound absurd (since

people are paid to do this job in the ministries).

Many applicants after registering their applications

abadon it, forgetting the inspection stage whereby they

need to take officials from the ministry to their site

for physical inspection. Ideally the ministry is supposed

to invite the applicant by writing for the inspection.

2. Non submission of record copy of survey plan to the

survey Department of the Ministry by the Surveyor that

prepared it in respect of the applicant’s parcel of land.

3. Errors detected on the survey plan on inspection or at

the charting stage. This may necessitate the preparation

of another survey plan.

4. Delays as a result of bureaucracy on the part of the

officials of the Ministry.

5. More importantly the frequent changes of the Principal

officers connected with the C. of O. preparation, that

is, State Governor, and Commissioner, Director-General,

etc, in the Ministry.

To acquire a plot of land eventually obtain the statutory

right of occupancy and certificate of occupancy in Niger

state, one can follow to different approaches, these are

through:

1. The government

2. The Ward head (Mai-Unguwa)

State Land:

Under the first method, an applicant may apply directly

to the state or local government for land.

Usually there are state land and in very few cases

local government land have been acquired, subdivided and

properly demarcated and for which compensation have been paid

as required by the Land use decree. An applicant is required

to obtain the application form at a cost of N200.00 which will

be accompanied by two passport photographs, declaration of

age/birth certificate, a tree year tax clearance certificate

and a deposit which varies according to uses and location

(town) upon submission. The amount (deposit) paid for various

uses is presented in table 2. Although Minna is the state

capital, land in Suleja is more highly demanded and highly

prized because of its close proximity to Abuja, the Nation’s

Capital City hence all fees payable with respect to land is

always highest. If the application is successful, the

applicant is issued the statutory Right of Occupancy which

entitles him to develop the land. This is signed by the

commissioner in charge of land. At this point, the applicant

starts to pay the annual ground rent which also varies with

the use of land and size.

With the collection of the statutory Right of Occupancy

Certificate, many applicants do not go further to apply for

the C. of O. until it is required for other purposes, such as

mortgage. To process the C. of O. the applicant is required to

pay, what is referred to as, the initial bill. This covers the

most of surveying, compensation and certificate preparation.

This fee (initial bill) is not fixed. It is interesting to

note that most of the time the plots of land in posse ion of

the government are not surveyed until they are being allotted

to successful applicants. Also, the cost of compensation paid

with respect to the acquisition of land is recovered from the

applicants. When all these fees have been paid, the

certificate is then prepared and passed through the

commissioner in charge of land to the state governor for

endorsement. This process have been found to take between one

to five years depending on how closely the application is

followed up by the application.

Community Land:

In view of the fact that before 1976, land in Northern Nigeria

was communally owned and couple with the fact that land under

the state control at present is inadequate to meet the demand

for various uses, prospective land owners to a large extent

still resort to purchasing land from local authorities, in

spite of the land use decree. Under this method, an applicant

approaches the wardhead-(Mai-Unguwa) in respect of parcel of

land of interest. An agreed fee is paid to the wardhead and an

agreement is signed for the transfer of land. In some cases,

some wardheads have standard application forms.

To legalise this transaction, the applicant submits a sketch

plan of his site together with a completed application form to

State’s Area Office (Land) from where site inspection is done.

If the site meets all the requirements expected, the file is

sent to the Laand Division (headquarters) for survey and

charting and then to the Town Planning Department for approval

and the back the Land Division where the normal process for

the application for the Statutory Right of Occupancy and C. of

O. will begin. Where land on which the C. of O. has been

issued is transferred to another person, consent fees are paid

to the government. The fees payable vary with size of plot in

hectares as in table 3.

As with the Oyo State case, a number of problems are

associated with the issuance of C. of O. These include:

1. Frequent change of government. There were cases where the

new governor or the commissioner refused to give

consideration to the pending cases for upward of six

months upon assumption of office.

2. When land has been subdivided by the Town Planning Depatment,

often there is lack of fund for the perimeter survey by the

survey department.

Table 1: Allocation of Government Land Nov. 1994-March 1995.

Period Application AllocationNovember 1994 69 24December 1994 30 25January 1995 250 250February 1995 125 50March 1995 105 50Total 579 399

Source: Ministry of Lands, Housing and Physical Planning,

Ibadan,1998.

Table 2: Deposit paid for different Uses

Types of Usse Minna Deposit in Naira(N)

Suleja

Others

Residential 600 2500 500

Commercial 1500 5000 1000

Industrial 3000 10000 3000

Petrol Station 3000 5000 2000

Private School 1500 3000 800

Farmland 500 3000 1000

Livestock 500 1000 500

Grazing 500 1000 500

Quarry 25000 30000 25000

Source: Ministry of Works, Lands, Survey and Town Planning,

Minna, (1995).

3. Even, when land has been acquired by the government,

inability to pay compensation over the land usually delay the

actual take-over. This is common in Suleja where illegal

buildings have been erected on the supposedly state land.

4. There is also the problem of inadequacy of vehicles for

field work and site inspection.

Also noted, and of great concern, is the poor state of

record keeping. Today, no one can say for sure, the number of

plots available and/or allocated for different land uses, or

the number of C. of O. issued so far by the government.

Though the plot statistics are contained on the layout sheets,

with time and with use the sheets are worn out and the

information are lost. The social and political circumstances

surrounding the issuance of C. of O., will not allow accurate

records to be kept. There is no doubt that most of the state

lands are possessed by top government functionaries, top

military men and powerful businessmen. As soon as layouts are

prepared and as soon as the implementers (turned land

speculators) got their own allocations, the plots are

exhausted. This is why local arrangements through the

wardheads are existing side by side with the state

governments.

IMPLICATIONS OF FINDINGS

The study has revealed a number of facts which tend to

make the existing practices of land administration a mockery

of the ideals of the Land Use Decree and which therefore call

for a revision. The immediate impact of uncoordinated and

cumbersome land administration process is seen in the

continuing organic growth of urban centres in Nigeria as

typified by Ibadan and Suleja, which has made nonsense of

whatever development plan or Master Plans prepared to guide

their growth.

In Suleja (Niger State) there is a constant friction between

the Local Government Authority and the State Town Planning

Department over the rate at which illegal structures are

springing up. A case in point, which is currently raging on,

concerns a parcel of land belonging to a community primary

school. The land in question belonged to some individuals but

as the need arose to establish a primary school for the

growing community, the owners voluntarily surrendered their

land tor the community and the school was built. Recently, a

few influential individuals approached the Local Government

Authority for portion of the unoccupied land in the school.

The Local Government subdivided the land and allocated the

demarcating the school’s land with the intention of putting

up residential structures – an action which the Town Planning

Department is now kicking against. The problems here are:

1. Responsibility for the Management of Primary School in the

country has continued to be shifted from one authority to

another from Local – State – Federal – Local and now the

National Primary Education Board. Moreover, the assets of

these schools have not been properly documented.

2. The dual (State and Local) control of land especially in

urban centres contrary to the provision of the Land Use

Decree which vests the control of all urban lands solely in

the State Governor,

3. A poor record keeping system which has allowed,

inadvertently, the issuance of C. of O, to multiple

applicants for a supposedly state land (that is the Primary

School).

The most problematic area in Suleja, is the Madalla area

along the road to Federal Capital, Abuja. Here the planners

are watching helplessly as spontaneous development is taking

place (NITP, 1993). Though the area has been acquired by the

state government orderly allocation of land and layout

development cannot be carried out because the original

owners have not been compensated as required by the Decree.

In fact, since 1988, no compensation has been paid in Suleja

Local Government Area.

In Oyo State too, Olatubara(1993) has observed that direct

guidance of land use pattern appears not to be very

effective since the promulgation of the land Use Decree

because of the secret transactions in land and land

development. Town Planning Authorities in the State, having

realized these problems have adopted a mild compromise to

control development in the urban centres. According to

Olatubara (1993) “Land Owner” with private layouts were

given “approvals” to operate their plans as “unregistered”

layouts for the purposes of ensuring that developments

comply with certain requirements.

The decree envisaged that acquisition of land would be

easier than hitherto, however, in practice, this has not

been found to be correct. Cases of inter-government

(Federal/ State/Local) and government/community clashes of

interest are common. These conflicts have resulted in the

stalling of public projects such as public housing in the

past (especially during the last civilian regime 1979-83) in

states that were not controlled by the ruling party. Even at

present time, this factor is responsible for the absence of

any Federal Government sites and services project in the

Delta State.

In Delta State, the site chosen for the project is the

undeveloped parcel of land belonging to a Federal College.

The land was freely given to the Federal Government for the

establishment of the college. Now the government wants to

develop a part of the land into residential plots which will

eventually be allocated to influential and perhaps non-

indigenes. The donor families are now running a legal battle

with the government for over two years now.

Two fundamental moral and philosophical questions then

arise:

1. Is it proper for government to change the use of land

when change of use is not permitted by planning by law?

2. Is it proper for the government to acquire land free of

charge from indigenous families for public use

(educational) and later subdivide part of the land into

residential plots for private use?

CONCLUSION

In view of the problems highlighted above, there is the need

for an amendment of the relevant section of the Land Use

Decree. Furthermore, since the government has not been able to

supply land at the right quantity to meet public and private

demands, it is expedient that the section that limits the size

of land to 0.5 hectare per person in the urban area should be

revised to enable private and corporate property developers

acquire and develop more land. The revision should contain

checks which will control land transfer or land speculation.

Also, the Development Controls Unit of the Town Planning

Departments should be strengthened and well equipped in terms

of mobility, being the “eye” of the Department, in order to

effectively police the urban centres.

Planning education should be carried to, and intensified in,

all local government areas by virtue of their headquarters

being designated as urban centres by various state

governments. Governments at all levels should make land

information system an integral part of the planning, research

and statistics unit of the Ministry or Department in charge of

land matters. Above all, staff training in Geographical

Information System is essential in order to keep abreast of

the latest land management and administration techniques.

REFERENCES

Brocklebank, Jack, Nicholas Kaldor et al (1972) The Case forNationalizing Land cited in Okpala DCI (1980).“Accessibility Distribution Aspects of Public Urban LandManagement A Nigerian Case”. Habitat International 4(4,5,6):593-609.

Faruacque C. and MC. Auslan D. (1992); Reforming UrbanLand Policies and Institutions in Developing Countries. UrbanManagement Programme. The World Bank, Washington D.C. Pg.V.

Federal Republic of Nigeria (1992), Land Use DecreeNo.6, Official Gazette Extra-Ordinary 65(14)Government Notice 272.

James R.W.(1987): Nigerian Land Use Act: policy andprinciples. University of Ife Press, IIe-Ife P.1.

Morenikeji Wole (1990): “Land Use Decree and UrbanPlanning” Daily Sketch Newspaper May 4, P.7.

Nigerian Institute of Town Planners (1993): “Problemsof Land Speculations Physical Planning in SulejaNiger State”. A Memorandum submitted to the NigerState Government.

Ola C.S. (1984): Town and Country Planning andEnvironmental Laws in Nigeria. University Press Ibadan.

Olatubara Charles O.(1993): “Ten Years of the Land Use Decree(Act) in Nigeria (1978-1988): The Oyo State Experience”. The QuarterlyJournal of Administration O.A.U. Ile-Ife 27(1&2):85-96.