Time to overhaul land tenure system

Since1863, when formal land registration began in Nigeria, not more than 2.5 per cent of the land in the whole country has been registered. This means that only about two million land titles have been registered against the over 150 million land titles. Vice President Yemi Osibanjo echoed this worry at the opening of the […]

Since1863, when formal land registration began in Nigeria, not more than 2.5 per cent of the land in the whole country has been registered. This means that only about two million land titles have been registered against the over 150 million land titles.

Vice President Yemi Osibanjo echoed this worry at the opening of the National Stakeholders Dialogue on Land Reform in Nigeria organized by the Presidential Technical Committee on Land Reform (PTCLR) held in Abuja on Monday.

The Vice President said building a consensus is the easy part but implementation has been more important because land is critical and has been at the root of herdsmen/farmers clashes and issues of resource control etc. He said the PTC made presentations to the National Economic Council in 2016 while a subcommittee further studied and made recommendations which have since been submitted to the National Council of State for ratification.

At the dialogue, experts on land management, which included former chairman of PTCLR Prof. Akin Mabogunje and Prof. Peter Adeniyi, Chairman, Presidential Technical Committee on Land Reform (PTCLR), a creation of late President Umaru Yar’adua in 2009, harped on the fact that land is a veritable resource which has become increasingly important in the context of development and poverty alleviation, but which has also endured ineffective management that has led to humongous loss of derivable benefits to the majority of the citizens of this country. 

Nigeria’s agricultural sector is in transition, moving from a predominantly subsistence to commercial production. It is also a major production input in agriculture and therefore cannot but be affected by the framework for land administration and the property rights inherent in agricultural land. Access to land is an important basis for the social, economic and political development of a person or household, especially in the rural economy of Nigeria and its administration covers issues of land tenure, land use regulation and land valuation. 

The benefits of a good land administration system include guarantee of ownership and security of tenure, provision of security for credit, reduction of land disputes, facilitation of rural land reform, and support for land and property taxation. There is therefore a compelling need for Nigeria to create a land administration system that will, among other functions, facilitate the use of such lands for agricultural purposes by third parties. Such a system, backed by enabling laws, could be empowered to hold vacant agricultural lands in trust within a land bank, after due titling and registering of such lands in the names of the owners and to lease out such lands for agricultural purposes for and on behalf of the owners. 

Under this arrangement, the owners will be assured of their continuing interests due to the titling and registering of the land, and the leasehold agreement facilitated by the banks. Proper use of our land resources would ensure efficient utilization of the country’s land resources and thereby engender the prosperity of Nigeria. Land related matters must be transformed from their current complex and confused juridical forms that include communal, feudal, family, freehold and other holdings to a comprehensive land reform that must be radically different from the present Land Use Act with its attendant multiplicity of interests and ambiguities. 

To this end, well functioning urban and rural land markets, and land taxation, operated under a properly formulated but transparent Land Use Policy will release these lands for development purposes such as agriculture, homes, factories, and recreation parks that are beneficial to Nigerians.

Finally, a National Land Commission is urgently required to oversee land matters in the country. Individuals, families, cooperatives and corporate bodies should be given titles to land. Nigerians would then be able to use their ingenuity to invest, produce, eliminate poverty and create wealth for themselves and the country would develop. This will seriously stem insecurity in the country and set us on a pace of faster economic and social development.