Compulsory acquisition of private lands in Nigeria: The roles of NGOs in reducing the negative impacts on affected communities (original) (raw)
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The Nigerian Juridical Review
Compulsory acquisition of land (private property) is permitted under Nigerian law, but such acquisition must be conducted in accordance with the prescriptions of law. A fundamental criterion in a compulsory acquisition is the compliance with the public purpose requirement. Increasingly, state governments in Nigeria have been engaging in massive land grabbing for many reasons that tend to challenge the public purpose requirement. In certain cases, including governments’ acquisition for mass housing projects, the resultant beneficiaries are far from qualifying for the ascription of the term ‘public’ for the purpose of compliance with the public purpose requirement. This casts doubt on the acquiring authority’s compliance with the extant law. Using a doctrinal methodology, this paper argues for the prioritization of public interest over private interest. The paper aims to provide a roadmap for ensuring that public interest requirement reigns supreme in any compulsory acquisition in Nig...
2011
This paper presents the findings of a case study on land governance in the Ondo State of Nigeria. A conceptual framework based on concepts of organizational theory is presented to guide the study. The empirical part of the study focuses on two cases of land registration and two cases of land acquisition. A participatory mapping method called “Process Net-Map†was used to identify the actors and the processes involved. The study shows that the costs of land registration are around 10 percent of the land value if landowners have access to intermediaries and if they can pay for privately provided land services in cash. Otherwise, landowners may incur much higher costs due to governance problems. In the case of land acquisition by the state, the study found that major problems do not arise because of a lack of land registration, but rather because of governance problems involved in the disbursement of compensation funds. The study discusses the implications of the findings for land g...
Land Administration and Access to Development Land: The Dilemma of Ordinary Nigerians
This paper examines Land administration and access to development land in Nigeria. The focus of the paper is on the frustrations and challenges ordinary Nigerians encounter in the course of having access to land. The 1978 Land Use Decree was promulgated to ensure easy access to land in Nigeria but it has left the people worst off. It is the contention of this paper that majority of Nigerians do not have easy access to land allocation from the government and the only option available to them is to resort to acquiring land from the informal land market. Similarly, the general consensus of the Nigerians is that they have not been treated fairly by the government as far as access to land is concerned. The paper concludes by recommending ways to enhance easy access to land to ordinary Nigerians in order to ensure equity and fairness in allocation of such a vital societal resource.