Despite its imperfections Land Use Act has some good sides, experts insist

Despite the imperfections that define the provisions and operations of the Land Use Act, some built environment experts insist that the Act has its good sides that have helped to ease land administration.

Land Use Act was enacted 40 years ago as an alternative to the native land tenure system which inhibited effective use of land for real estate, agricultural, industrial and infrastructure development.

It is an Act that vests all land compromised in the territory of each state (except land vested in the federal government or its agencies) solely in the governor of the state who would hold such land in trust for the people and would henceforth be responsible for allocation of land in all urban areas to individuals resident in the state and to organisations for residential, agricultural, commercial and other purposes

Section 26 of the Act states that any transaction in land which purports to confer on, or vest in any persons, any right or interest over land other than as stated in the Act, shall be ‘null and void.

MKO Balogun, GMD/CEO at Global Property & Facilities International Limited, points out  that in Part V, ’ the Act  empowers the governor to revoke rights of occupancy for reasons of overriding public interest such as alienation of the land by the occupier without due approval, requirement of the land by federal, state or local government for public purposes.

Quoting Samod Biobaku in his writing on Private Property of January 30, 2017, Balogun notes that one of the biggest problems around the Act is the process of acquiring the Certificate of Occupancy (C of O) from the state governor, pointing out that, as a result of the sensitivity of the document, it has given birth to high-level corruption in the ministry that processes the C of O; in other words, the process has suffered political and social abuses over the years.

Chudi Ubosi, an Principal Partner at Ubosi Eleh+ Co, takes it beyond this, referring to the World Bank’s Ease of Doing Business 2017, which says that, as a result of the provisions of the Act, property registration in Nigeria takes an average of 77 days to achieve as against 59.7 days in sub-Saharan Africa and 22.4 days in high income Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) countries.

“Registering properties in sub-Saharan Africa in general and Nigeria in particular is evidently tough as demonstrated by the report”, he said, adding, “at an average of 10.10 percent, Nigeria is among sub-Saharan Africa countries with the highest cost of registration as a percentage of property value; the average in sub-Saharan Africa is 8.00 percent and 4.20 percent in the OECD countries”.

These notwithstanding, Balogun insist the Act has some advantages that have aided land development. He listed some of the advantages as increased opportunity for land ownership by more people, leading to rapid urbanisation of the country; opportunity for foreign investment in real estate; open land transaction and development for the good of the people.

From a different but related perspective, Olufemi Babalola, Vice Chairman, Gravitas Investment Limited, says there is nothing wrong with the Act, but its operators, insisting that the call for its abrogation is baseless.

“I don’t support the abrogation of the Act which many people have called for over the years”, he said, recalling that before the Act, there was the communal land ownership system which, he explained, stifled development in real estate, agriculture, industrial concerns.

He pointed out that the use of a parcel of land for any of these purposes could be stalled if there was just one dissenting voice among the native owners.

“The Act was promulgated to take care of situations like this and so rested ownership of the land on the state governors who are supposed to hold the land in trust for the people, but because some of them are lazy and un-resourceful, a lot of things have gone wrong with the Act”, he explained.

 “The Act created a central land registry; it also created a good land administration, but the governors are lazy; so, it is not the Act that is bad, but the operators that make it look as if it is so”, he added.

CHUKA UROKO