In March 2008, President Yar'Adua sent a Bill to the National Assembly for the amendment of the Land Use Act, a 1978 law which transferred ownership of all lands in Nigeria to Governors of States.
The amendments sought to reduce the powers of Governors over land transactions and dealings confining the requirement for Governor’s Consent to issues relating only to assignment of land.
The Land Use Act has had more profound impact on Nigerians than any other law promulgated in the history of Nigeria as it literally took their ownership rights over lands, transforming them into tenants.
Even as such tenants, Nigerians were required to obtain the consents of Governors prior to transacting in any respect with lands which in some instances had been family owned for generations.
The Land Use Act was promulgated by the military government of then Head of State, General Obasanjo and was embedded in both the 1979 and 1999 Constitutions thus cementing the landless rights of Nigerians in their ‘supposedly’ own constitution.
Although ownership rights over land were transferred to Governors, Nigerians retained possessory rights even if they did not have Statutory Rights of Occupancy or Customary Rights of Occupancy, the only proof of title recognized by the Land Use Act.
This has meant that Governors requiring land supposedly for overriding public purposes have had to resort to compulsory acquisitions of land from Nigerians for which compensation has to be paid under the Land Use Act.
Conditions were then imposed on those seeking land allocations from State Governments and on those seeking statutory documents of title over lands they had been in their families possession for generations.
Vast majorities of Nigerians especially in rural areas simply chose to ignore the provisions of the Land Use Act since they could utilize their lands either for agricultural or habitation purposes and pass such rights to their heirs.
The implication has been that only about 5% of land title rights are captured in the official title registries of State Governments in Nigeria effectively creating a two tier system of land rights, i.e. the legal and extra-legal sectors.
While Governors of States have ownership rights which they cannot possess except through compulsory acquisitions, Nigerians have possessory rights without recognized title documents.
This means that Nigerians are sitting on vast amounts of dead capital as they possess lands from which no surplus or additional value can be obtained beyond the primary purposes of agriculture and habitation.
Our past and current attitude to land utilization and ownership issues in Nigeria is no different from our attitude towards oil and gas, which are explored and exported in their natural state with no value added.
The same oil and gas is processed into value added products by other nations and imported into Nigeria at great costs resulting in massive foreign exchange loss to Nigeria in addition to generating employment in the value adding nations.
In the U.S., 70% of new businesses are financed by people using the title documents of their landed assets as collateral to finance new businesses in property markets that have various layers of economic rights and interests that are documented.
While the amendments proposed by then President Yar'Adua to the Land Use Act are commendable, a lot more is needed to unleash the dead capital on which the vast majority of Nigerians are sitting.
With the fall in oil and gas prices expected to last for a decade, regularizing the possessory rights of Nigerians over land and documenting their interests is a principal way of putting capital in the hands of Nigerians.
Having title documents over land will allow Nigerians approach banks for loans to finance business ideas using their legal interests as collaterals and in turn allow the Central Bank of Nigeria to inject more funds into the finance sector.
This way CBN will be printing more Naira backed up by assets in the hands of Nigerians which will be injected into the economy to drive business opportunities and generate employment opportunities for the over 40 million unemployed Nigerian youths.
State Governors need not wait for the proposed amendments to the Land Use Act to set the ball rolling especially as they are facing sever shortfall in funding as a result of the fall in oil and gas prices.
They can start by removing the various conditions that have prevented Nigerians from realizing the potential contained in their possessory land rights to enable them document their interests and unleash otherwise dead capital.
They can also take steps to simplify the documentation process and adopt the use of electronic registers thus making it easier to track the various surplus or additional values and interests that will be created over land.
It is important that State Governments recognize that funding for their capital and recurrent expenses will come from taxing the economic activities of Nigerians rather than collecting licensing and registration fees.
Regularizing title documents of Nigerians over land will also attract foreign capital for investment purposes allowing the sector to be driven by the private sector with the role of governments restricted to regulation.
No comments:
Post a Comment