Land recovery in Kaduna State

The Kaduna State Government last week commenced what it was an exercise to recover government lands illegally or improperly allocated to individuals by various past administrations in the state. Officials had announced earlier of the government’s intention to preserve the integrity of lands belonging to public institutions such as schools and hospitals, among others, issuing […]

The Kaduna State Government last week commenced what it was an exercise to recover government lands illegally or improperly allocated to individuals by various past administrations in the state.
Officials had announced earlier of the government’s intention to preserve the integrity of lands belonging to public institutions such as schools and hospitals, among others, issuing a stop-work order on land carve-outs in public institutions.
Explaining the government’s position on the matter that had generated mixed reactions, Governor Nasir El-Rufai, a statement made on his behalf by his Special Assistant on Media and Publicity, Mr Samuel Aruwan, said the government was determined to recover lands from those that acquired them illegally. He rejected the argument that the process amounted to demolition.
“Since after the town hall meeting in Zaria, some people started campaign of calumny that Mr El-Rufai has come to embark on demolition of houses in Kaduna. But to set the records straight, we are only asking those who illegally occupied government owned institutions’ lands to vacate them”, the statement noted.
It cited the case of the century-old Alhudahuda College in Zaria, where he noted private buildings almost had taken over the premises. 
“We will only recover the lands for the future of our children. The public land belongs to the good people of Kaduna State and we must recover it before is late,” he said.
The recovery exercise started last Wednesday, when bulldozers of the state government swung into action in and around the Alhudahuda College, a development that some see as heavy-handed.
Some of the marked property owners claimed that their dwellings were wrongly demolished, insisting that they acquired them legally, many years ago, although there was no indication they showed proof of that claim. Many others also said they moved to their present location after they were dislodged from their communities in other parts of the state as a result of crisis.
However, the government is on solid ground in its justification for embarking on the exercise, because it is duty of every government seek to eject anyone either squatting or had obtained spurious authorisation to be there. In this case, the land processes appeared to have been done by government officials who ignored building and land allocation rules to benefit either themselves or their cronies and political associates.
Particularly important is the emphasis on addressing issues relating to encroachment on schools, hospitals and other government properties.
By virtue of the Lands Use Act, promulgated in 1978, all land in the territory of each state is vested in the governor of that state, whose prior consent is mandatory for the legal validity of any transfers or alienation of interest in landed property.
If one bought a piece from someone or government official who is not entitled to sell it, chances are the transaction is invalid.
 Similarly, the issue of carve-outs- where unused expanse of land around government quarters and institutions are reduced to minuscule plots and shared to cronies is worrisome.
This practice is prevalent in most of the states of the federation and does not augur well for proper town planning and development.
All public buildings, especially schools, hospitals and specialized institutions, including their mandates and assets, are gazetted and any attempt to tamper with them must pass through legal procedure.
If encroachment on such properties is not curtailed, the resulting effect is that such important institutions would be constricted and would have no space for expansion in the future.
All said, the Kaduna State government must also be cautious in carrying out the exercise of reclaiming the ‘illegally acquired lands’.
Natural justice must be allowed to prevail, because some of the affected families whose houses were affected lived in such locations for decades even as some of them acquired the lands by what they belived was means.
Since government is a continuous process, those with genuine papers must be adequately given alternative space, like in the New Millennium City so that they would recover their pieces and live a normal life.
The Kaduna State government, and perhaps any state government in Nigeria that may be planning to toe same path, must address the root cause of the problem. Most government properties are not clearly demarcated, and this makes them to be encroached upon.