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.
Top Related