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 Allocation
November 1994 69 24
December 1994 30 25
January 1995 250 250
February 1995 125 50
March 1995 105 50
Total 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
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Faruacque C. and MC. Auslan D. (1992); Reforming Urban Land Policies and Institutions in Developing Countries. Urban Management Programme. The World Bank, Washington D.C. Pg. V.
Federal Republic of Nigeria (1992), Land Use Decree No.6, Official Gazette Extra-Ordinary 65(14) Government Notice 272.
James R.W.(1987): Nigerian Land Use Act: policy and principles. University of Ife Press, IIe-Ife P.1.
Morenikeji Wole (1990): “Land Use Decree and Urban Planning” Daily Sketch Newspaper May 4, P.7.
Nigerian Institute of Town Planners (1993): “Problems of Land Speculations Physical Planning in Suleja Niger State”. A Memorandum submitted to the Niger State Government.
Ola C.S. (1984): Town and Country Planning and Environmental 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 Quarterly Journal of Administration O.A.U. Ile-Ife 27(1&2):85-96.