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B N W: Biafra Nigeria World News |
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Speaking with journalists the other day, Housing and Urban Development Minister, Mrs. Mobolaji Osomo, reportedly disclosed that the controversial Land Use Act would be reviewed or might even be repealed.
The Act was promulgated on March 29, 1978. By virtue of Section 274(5) of the 1979 Constitution, which shares a community of provisions with Section 315(5)(d) of the 1999 Constitution, the Act forms an integral part of the basic law of the land. The purpose which it was designed to serve included egalitarianism and equity in the distribution of land in the country. It also sought to make land readily available for public use and to eliminate perennial controversies over land alienation, particularly in urban areas.
However, since the Act became law, there has been no change at all both in the attitude of the citizens to land, or, indeed, in the volume of disputes over land. In spite of the creation of the Land Use and Allocation Committee and the Land Use Advisory Committee designed to advise the Governor and the Local Government, respectively on issues relating to the resettlement of persons affected by the revocation of rights of occupancy and on the amount of compensation payable for improvements on the land, rank injustices to original landowners continue to fester.
This development is traceable to the ambiguities contained in the compensation provisions of the Act. The Act provides that all land comprised in the territory of each State is vested in the Governor of that State, who shall hold it "in trust and administer for the use and common benefit of all Nigerians in accordance with the provisions of this Act".
These provisions are nebulous and have been capriciously misinterpreted by apologists of unitarism and military rigorism to mean that all land in the territory of each State is held in trust by the Governor for the Federal Government. This interpretation is buoyed by Section 28(4) of the Act, which provides that if and whenever the Federal Government requires land for "public purpose", it shall merely issue a notice to that effect.
Sections 5 and 6 of the Act, requiring the grant, respectively, of statutory and customary rights of occupancy by the Governor and the Local Government, have created serious bottlenecks, negating the original idea of the Act. The provisions for Governor's consent and the power of revocation call for a review as they call in question the principle of communal ownership. The foregoing and several other reasons, no doubt, explains why Mrs. Osomo is calling for a review or even repeal of the Land Use Act, to be replaced by a compulsory land registration scheme.
In her words, "we want to do away with the area of consent, once you know that this property is yours. We want something that the Federal Government can say that once you have the C of O, we can guarantee that that document is yours..." All that is just as well. The Act has been crying for a review or repeal.
It should be noted, however, that it can only be altered or repealed by complying with the provisions of Section 9(2) of the 1999 Constitution. Now coded as Cap. 202, Laws of the Federation of Nigeria, 1990, the Land Use Act forms an entrenched part of the Constitution. Accordingly, its alteration, let alone repeal, might be an uphill task. Here was a novel legislation on land whose operation and validity had not been tested but which was enshrined in the Constitution with such unholy haste.
Today, the Land Use Act, as the Minister rightly observed, has become a clog in the wheel of the nation's socio-economic progress. That being so, the intention of the Federal Government to do something about it is welcome. It is, however, yet to be seen how the Minister or, indeed, the Federal Government, will have the Act reviewed or repealed with the speed with which it was entrenched in the 1979 and 1999 Constitutions.
One aspect of the Minister's speech that is not welcome is the suggestion that her Ministry would go overseas to source for property lawyers or experts to help in the compulsory land registration scheme. According to her, "we are bringing in some experts from England very soon to help us look at the problem of land registration in this country and we need to go places with it". Nigeria can boast of a sizeable crop of good academic property lawyers and professional land experts who can do whatever the Federal Government wants to do about land registration. We are persuaded that going overseas to import experts on land registration would be a waste of the nation's scarce resources and an insult on the intellectual and professional sagacity of Nigerians.
Finally, we counsel circumspection in the Minister's dream project - the compulsory land registration scheme. The Federal Government should remember that Nigeria is a federation, and no attempt should be made to over-centralise the registration of land at the expense of the people's culture and communal development.
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