Land compensation: Need for infrastructural highway

Lands in Nigeria are held either as customary, statutory or federal lands. Every inch of Nigeria is covered by either of these and the Land Use Act of 1978 governs the use of land. Land acquisition and compensation and their consequential issues occur as a result of revocation of land as contained in Section 28 […]

Lands in Nigeria are held either as customary, statutory or federal lands. Every inch of Nigeria is covered by either of these and the Land Use Act of 1978 governs the use of land.

Land acquisition and compensation and their consequential issues occur as a result of revocation of land as contained in Section 28 of the Land Use Act, and when the requirements of this sections are fully met then Section 29 would apply, which speaks about compensation.

Compensation is subsequent to a revocation of the right of occupancy of a holder and/or occupier of land and the Land Use Act provides that the governor of every state is empowered to revoke rights of occupancy, both customary and statutory rights, for public purposes. Once these are done then compensation issue now comes in.

 The only land that the governor cannot revoke is federal land. But we have seen instances of abuse by state governors, where they revoke land of political opponents, some in the guise of non-payment of ground rent.

But on the adequacy of compensation, the fact is that what is adequate with regards compensation is a subjective issue because what I would expect as compensation may not necessarily be what another person would expect for the same piece of land.

That is why there is provision for a methodology in calculating compensation which says that compensation for land is equal to the amount of ground rent that a person paid in that year of revocation. So if one has not paid ground rent for that year, by law, he or she is entitled to nothing.

For the structures on the land, the compensation is equal to the depreciated replacement cost of what a person has on that land, if it is say a two-bedroom house that has been used for about 10-20 years, the owner is supposed to receive a depreciated value of it, so he/she will not be given 100% value.

For the crops and economic trees on the land, it is equal to the amount specified by the appropriate land officer, who has a list of economic crops in each state.

Unfortunately, many states have not reviewed these rates for several years, Kaduna State is an exception though, many other states use obsolete rates that have been in existence since 2005, so there is need for urgent review.

Many recipients of compensation in Nigeria are not satisfied with the compensation given to them, of course the more the merrier, but it is subjective.

This leads to resistance by many recipients of compensation in our rural areas. Some, even after receiving money do not allow construction work to be carried out because of lack of satisfaction with what they’ve been given. So compensation issues should not always be cash-based. There should be proper engagement; communities should know what kind of project it is and what the benefits are for them, so that they will look beyond the cash compensation.

Estate surveyors should engage in continuous development programmes in order to upgrade their skills regarding compensation and be mindful of the security implications of land acquisition, e.g., the Kaduna-Abuja railway, such routes can be risky where adequate compensation is questionable.

Also, Nigeria by now should have an infrastructural highway, a route where power lines, rail lines, roads, telecom cables, fibre-optics are all within a particular transit way, so that monitoring would be easier.

Adamu Kasimu is an Abuja-based estate surveyor and valuer