The imperative of land reform

Land is the most unique and most strategic of all the factors of production: capital, labour and enterprise. Its availability plays a pivotal role in the development of any economy, particularly increase in investment.

Industrialisation, housing development, agriculture, mining, oil exploration and other economic and productive activities that lead to improved standard of living, job creation, and economic growth, among others are possible only when land is available and harnessed for such purposes.

A World Bank Report on ‘How Africa Can Transform Land Tenure, Revolutionise Agriculture, and End Poverty’ notes that sub-Saharan Africa is home to nearly half of the world’s usable, uncultivated land, but so far the continent has not been able to develop these unused tracts, estimated at more than 202 million hectares, to dramatically reduce poverty and boost growth, jobs, and shared prosperity.

This observation re-echoes the utter failure of Nigeria’s Land Use Act which was promulgated by the then military government under Olusegun Obasanjo in 1978. The Act vested ownership of all land in a state on the governor, meaning that the governor holds it in trust for the people and has the power to allot and revoke land at will. This power over land given to governors has attracted criticisms with strident calls for the withdrawal of such powers.

Another report by the World Bank titled ‘Securing Africa’s Land for Shared Prosperity’ argues that African countries and their communities could effectively end ‘land grabs’, grow significantly more food across the region, and transform their development prospects if they can modernise the complex procedures that govern land ownership and management over the next decade.

We agree, just as we also align with the view that Nigeria’s Land Use Act, which is today a constitutional issue, should be excised from the constitution for thorough review. We believe that the review of the Act is the only way to solve the issue of the governor’s consent that tends to be punitive on developers and other investors requiring land to set up their businesses.

“Despite abundant land and mineral wealth, Africa remains poor,” the World Bank report says, advising that “improving land governance is vital for achieving rapid economic growth and translating it into significantly less poverty and more opportunity for Africans, including women who make up 70 percent of Africa’s farmers yet are locked out of land ownership due to customary laws.”

The report notes that more than 90 percent of Africa’s rural land is undocumented, and it is sad to note that in Nigeria, especially in big cities like Lagos, Abuja and Port Harcourt, ridiculously high land charges have made land documentation difficult, rendering such land highly vulnerable to land grabbing and expropriation with poor compensation.

In line with the report ‘Securing Africa’s Land for Shared Prosperity’, we agree that there should be an action plan by African governments to revolutionise agricultural production, end land grabbing, and eradicate extreme poverty.

We recall that the Federal Government under the late President Umaru Musa Yar’Adua initiated what it called a ‘holistic land reform’ which, regrettably, ended in the middle of nowhere. That initiative needs to be revisited.

In our opinion, just as the World Bank report also points out, African governments should champion reforms and investments to document all communal lands and prime lands that are individually owned, and regularise tenure rights of squatters on public land in urban slums that are home to 60 percent of urban dwellers in the continent.

We urge the governments to tackle the issues of weak governance and corruption in the land governance system in many African countries and thus release land for productive activities, economic growth and development.