Value of 97% of Nigeria’s landed property unknown – Don

Alarm has been raised that, so far, about 97 percent of land assets (land plus buildings) in Nigeria are unrecorded and given financial value, a situation that may have drawn the country’s economic development back due to wrong calculation of national wealth and prosperity.

This is as another expert on land matters at the Emmanuel Mark Foundation lecture series in Port Harcourt, Rivers State, raised more alarm that the absence of cadastral survey and mapping of Nigeria’s land resources could make the fight against terrorism and violent crimes more difficult.

A university don, who raised the alarm on non-valuation of land assets in Port Harcourt recently, feared that the drawback had slowed down rapid economic development because less than 3 percent of Nigeria’s landed value was accounted for and calculated in national wealth and prosperity scale.

The danger is that should Nigeria suffer large-scale natural disaster such as flooding or tsunami, there would be no record of what the nation lost in terms of houses and property in them.

Iyenemi Ibimina Kakulu, associate professor, Land Management and Valuation, Rivers State University of Science and Technology (RSUST), a guest lecturer at the inaugural lecture series instituted by Emmanuel Mark Group (EMG), speaking on governance issues in land administration under the bigger theme: ‘Integrated Land Administration and Mass Housing Development in the Niger Delta,’ said a good land governance structure should attempt to make information about land ownership available to the public.

Most landed assets in Nigeria cannot be used as collateral because of lack of documentation and valuation needed to raise development capital, she said, saying this is more serious in many states of Nigeria including Rivers.

“It should seek to cover all social groups in record keeping and cover all geographical areas. Several small towns and villages are dominated with very high quality, elegant and tastefully finished structures, which have no record of existence in any government land database. To effectively govern land, a state land inventory is required to enable government appreciate the extent of its landed property assets and use this as a basis for planning,” she said.

It her view, land governance involves a process of decision making in connection with access to land and land use that addresses conflicting interests of government and the governed.

In his lecture, a fellow of the Nigerian Institution of Valuers and Surveyors, Adekunle Awolaja, speaking on innovative business processes for automated land administration in Nigeria, said cadastral survey was a key issue begging for attention. A cadastre is a land register that indicates every plot of land and its use, different from a register for fees.

In his welcome remarks, the founder of the lecture series, Emmanuel Mark, said he was satisfied marking the 10thanniversary of his firm, Nuel Mark Group, with the establishment of a foundation to promote land administration and valuation in Nigeria.

The chairman of the event, Ferdinand Alabraba, an architect and chairman of the Greater Port Harcourt City Development Authority, who was represented by Emmanuel Douglas (Rivers State chairman of the Estate Agents of Nigeria), said what Mark had done was a refreshing dimension in corporate social responsibility in Nigeria.