SECURING LAND TITLE FOR WOMEN IN NIGERIA FROM A PROFESSIONAL PERSPECTIVE

BY

SURV. (MRS.) ANGELA ETUONOVBE LSM, MNIS, FHRM, PSR, JP

PRINCIPAL CONSULTANT

ANGENE SURVEYS & CONSULTANTS

OUTLINE− Summary

− Introduction

− Evolution of land tenure system in Nigeria

− The situation precedent to the land use act of 1978

− Summary the land use act of 1978

− Shortcomings of the land use act of 1978

− Land reform in Nigeria

− Women access to land in Nigeria

− How some women were able to secure land title− Conclusion / recommendation

 

SUMMARY

• In most developing countries, land is not only the primary means for generating a livelihood but often the main vehicle for investing, accumulating wealth, and transferring it between generations. It is a source of wealth to those who have it and the mother of all properties.

• Every person requires land for his support, preservation and self-actualization within the general ideals of the society. Land is the foundation of shelter, food and employment. Man lives on land during his life and upon his demise, his remains are kept in it permanently.

• As valuable as this commodity, the promulgation of the Land use Act of Nigeria of 1978 has not helped matters. By the Act, the control and management of Land in Nigeria became vested in the State.

• With the foregoing and the experience of the author who is a Surveyor with great experience of over eighteen years of practice of surveying in Nigeria and knowing how women and their children had been suffering from the hands of extended family members especially after the demise of their husband had to use her professional expertise to advise clients who own more than a single plot of land about a thousand square meters (1000m) to share their properties to their wives and children, which includes the female children.

• Over the years the author discovered that it yielded positive fruit as wife’s of client came back to thank her for sustaining their lives and that of their children especially after the death of their husband. Encouraged with these reports, the author went further and started counseling clients even those with single plots to re-survey their land and now including the names of their spouses so that in case of any eventuality, the woman is not left without nothing.

INTRODUCTION

• The Federal Republic of Nigeria is located in West Africa and it is bordered in the south by the Gulf of Guinea on the Atlantic Ocean, in the West by the Republic, in the east by Cameroons and Chad, and in the north by Niger Republic. Nigeria is a federal constitutional republic comprising thirty-six states and its Federal Capital Territory, Abuja. This is shared into six geo-political zones.

• Nigeria is the largest country in West Africa and the most populous country in Africa, the eighth most populous country in the world with a population of over 140 million. It has an area of about 923,768 km2 of which the land area is about 910,768km2 and 13,000km2 is water. It has coastal line of about 853 km.

MAP OF NIGERIA SHOWING THE SIX GEO-POLITAL ZONES

EVOLUTION OF LAND TENURE SYSTEM IN NIGERIA

• Pre-Colonial Era

• The pre-colonial land system in Nigeria is characterised by appropriation and adjudication by might of warfare, occupation and rulership in which princes and religious adventurists carved out dominions for their followers and communities. Community leaders and warlords had great influence in the administration of land for communal living, farming and grazing purposes.

 • In the northern part, as the predominantly nomadic Fulani rare their cattle

over large expanse of land and, they found settlements and markets (as they move) without defining boundaries for any group of communities or settlements After the Fulani Jihad in the early 19th century, a quasi-feudal pattern developed with Emirs claiming ultimate title to land, with fief holders.

 • In the Southern Nigeria, land was held by the community, village, or family.

In the main land was owned by extended lineage, individuals having only usufructuary rights by virtue of their member of the group.

EVOLUTION OF LAND TENURE SYSTEM IN NIGERIA CONT.• Colonial Era

• The Colonial Nigeria was divided into colonies and protectorates where multiplicity of land tenure systems existed. The arrival of Europeans in Southern Nigeria in the later part of 19 th century drastically changed the land holding system. As soon as the European traders, who were used to freehold, began to acquire land parcels in Lagos colony, they did so with the concept that the transactions conferred on them absolute ownership and the right of alienation. The transactions in land by the Europeans and the introduction of English freehold system 1861 caused deep conflicts between the customary system of land tenure and imported freehold system, which resulted in endless and bitter litigation.

 • However the Northern Protectorate was saved the experience of Southern Nigeria. Lord

Lugard who occupied Northern Nigeria at the turn of 19th century used the “tools” he found locally for the administration of land holdings. The Emirs who exercised “proprietorial” rights were appointed or re-appointed and given “letters of appointment” which transferred their feudal pattern of land holdings to the Crown. The Native Rights Proclamation of 1910 nationalised all land and placed it under the control and administration of the Governor in the interest of the indigenous population.

 • In 1914 Lord Lugard amalgamated the Southern and Northern Protectorates into one

centralised Nigeria ruled from Lagos, with each region retaining its land tenure system. In 1954 under regionalisation scheme, three regions emerged with the Northern Protectorate becoming the Northern Region, and the Southern Protectorate divided into West and Eastern Regions. The Regions were subsequently divided into States starting with 12 State in 1968 till the current 36 States and Federal Capital City, Abuja. Each State inherited the land tenure system from the Region it was created.

 

THE SITUATION PRECEDENT TO THE LAND USE ACT OF 1978• At the beginning of the 20th century when Britain made a colony and protectorate of Nigeria,

there was a multiplicity of land tenure systems in the country. Apart from the system in the Lagos colony where an English freehold system had been established following its annexation in 1861, these diverse systems can be grouped broadly into two (Meek, 1957). The first obtained in northern Nigeria where the colonial administration had placed all lands under the control and subject to the disposition of the Governor. This was on the basis that the Maliki Law operated by the Fulani over much of Hausaland in the 19 th century confers on the colonial conquerors rights to the land of the conquered. Without the consent of the Governor, no title to occupation and use of land was valid.

 

• An Ordinance of 1910 (GoN, 1953: 105) directed that the Governor shall hold and administer the land for the use and common benefit of the native peoples. Any native or native community lawfully using and occupying land in accordance with native law and custom enjoys a right of occupancy protected by the Ordinance and no rent is paid in respect of such rights. In the case of all other persons, no title is valid which has not been conferred by the Governor, who is empowered to grant rights of occupancy for definite or indefinite terms, to impose conditions and to charge a rent. The Ordinance lays down maxima of 1,200 acres for agricultural grants and 12,500 acres for grazing purposes.

•  By contrast, in southern Nigeria, the second system recognized that land was owned by lineages or extended families. Individuals have only right of use on such family land. The only land held at the Governor’s disposal was that which had been expressly acquired for public purposes as Crown land. The only control imposed by law on the lineages and other local land ‐ holders was an obligation to seek the consent of Government when rights are being conveyed to aliens. This land tenure system of southern Nigeria created a number of problems for land management in the country. First, it encouraged the practice of multiple sales of the same land to different buyers by land ‐owning families in the absence of a titling and appropriate registration mechanisms for transactions in land. Second, particularly after the nation’s political independence, it led to tremendous land speculation and a sharp rise in the prices of land for urban and infrastructural development.

THE SITUATION PRECEDENT TO THE LAND USE ACT OF 1978 CONT.• Poor farming families were encouraged to part with their land for relatively small amount compared

with what the speculators made from laying the land out for sale. This promoted increasing inequality in land ownership and increasing landlessness among the poorer segments of the population. Even after government had invoked its rights of eminent domain to compulsorily acquire and pay compensation for land for public purposes, the tendency grew for some owners of land to refuse to vacate their land. Based on the open system value of land which required cash compensation for land compulsorily acquired by government for public purposes, the increasing intervention of land speculators made the cost of acquisition to rise phenomenally.

 

• However, whether in northern or southern Nigeria, land was considered by the people themselves largely within the nexus of a pre ‐ capitalist social formation. For such social formations, not only kinship but allegiance to a local sovereign determines man’s relation to land. This is why in most Nigerian society; the position at the beginning of the 20th century was that land was not sold. To sell land to a stranger or migrant is to render the security of the community concerned a hostage to fortune. Hence, when the colonialist came, everywhere he went he was told that there was no tradition of alienating land. Indeed, such was the situation that the British Colonial Office (Colonial Office, 1916) had to set up a special Lands Committee to investigate the land tenure systems in all of its West African colonies in 1912 to confirm the general customary laws and practices with respect to land.

 

• Yet, the extensive labor migrations that colonialism set in motion could not go on without land being alienated to strangers and migrants. Whether in the urban or rural areas, transactions in land gradually emerged in all parts of the country. Unlike in pre ‐ capitalist society, such transactions also entailed the individualization of land. Such land remained in individual ownership until the demise of the owner when, through the inheritance law, it again became subject to multiple ownership claims. The introduction of perennial crops such as cocoa, rubber, planted oil palms, all of which meant fixed cultivation, replaced the transient traditional shifting cultivation under group control by an enduring right of individuals. By the same token, building a house in an urban area entailed establishing an enduring right on the particular plot of land. Thus, as the colonial era progressed, land alienation and sales not only grew in volume and geographical spread but also became the cause of considerable litigation and communal strife, often resulting in violent confrontation.

• In an attempt to halt the contrasting land tenure systems the country and the attendant litigations, fraudulent practices, and difficulty being experienced by various governments in accessing land for public good that the Federal Military Government promulgated the Land Use Decree (now Act) of 1978.

SUMMARY THE LAND USE ACT OF 1978

 • The Land Use Decree (now Land Use Act) was promulgated on 29th of March 1978 following the recommendations of a minority report of a panel appointed by the Federal Military Government of the time to advice on future land policy. With immediate effect, it vested all land in each State of the Federation in the Governor of that State (Federal Republic of Nigeria, 1978).

• The Act vests all land comprised in the territory of each State (except land vested in the Federal Government for its agencies) solely in the hands of the Military Governors of the State who would hold such land in trust for the people.

• The promulgation of this Act was as a result of two main factors:

• Firstly, was the diversity of customary laws on land tenure and difficulty in applying the various customs of the different people.

• The second factor was the rampant practice in southern Nigeria with regards to fraudulent sales of land. The same land would be sold to different persons at the same time giving rise to so many litigations.

SUMMARY THE LAND USE ACT OF 1978 CONT.

• The Act distinguishes throughout between urban and non-urban (rural) land. In urban areas (to be so designated by the Governor of a State), land was to come under the control and management of the Governor.

 • In rural areas it was to fall under the appropriate Local Government.• “Land Use and Allocation Committees”, appointed for each State by the

Governor, were to advise on the administration of land in urban areas.• “Land Allocation Advisory Committees” were to exercise equivalent functions

with regard to rural land. • The Act envisaged that “rights of occupancy”, which would appear to replace all

previous system or rules of inheritance to land, would form the basis upon which land was to be held. These rights were of two kinds: statutory and customary.

 • “Statutory rights of occupancy” were to be granted by the Governor and related

principally to urban areas.  • “Customary right of occupancy”, according to the Act, means the right of a

person or community lawfully using or occupying land in accordance with customary law and includes a customary right of occupancy granted by Local Government under this Act.

SUMMARY THE LAND USE ACT OF 1978 CONT.

• Local Governments were empowered to grant customary rights of occupancy to any person or organisation for agricultural, residential and other purposes with the proviso that grants of land for agricultural or grazing purposes should not exceed 500 or 5000 hectares respectively without the consent of the State Governor. With the minor exception of land subject to Federal or State claims, the Act also empowered the local government to enter upon, use and occupy for public purposes any land within the area of its jurisdiction and to revoke any customary right of occupancy on any such land. The approval of the Local Government was to be required for the holder of a customary right of occupancy to alienate that right.

• The Act prohibits the alienation by assignment, mortgage, transfer or possession, sub-lease or otherwise, of customary right of occupancy without the consent of either the Governor or the Local Government as the case may be. It also prohibits the alienation of statutory right of occupancy without the due consent of the Governor (Land Use Act, 1978: section 21 subsections a and b).

• Governors were empowered to revoke rights of occupancy for reasons of “overriding public interest.” Such reasons included alienation by an occupier without requisite consent or approval; a breach of the conditions governing occupancy; or the requirement of the land by Federal, State, or local government for public purposes. Only in the last of these cases would any compensation be due to the holder, and then only for the value of unexhausted improvements on the land and not for the land itself.

SUMMARY THE LAND USE ACT OF 1978 CONT.

There are four main objectives derivable from the act and these are:

 

− To effect structural change in the system of land tenure.

− To achieve fast economic and social transformation.

− To negate economic inequality caused by the appropriation of rising land values by land speculators and land holders, and

− To make land available easily and cheaply, to both the government and private individual developers.

SHORTCOMINGS OF THE LAND USE ACT OF 1978

The following, inter alia are the major shortcomings of the Land Use Act 1978: 

− Technical Issues

The lack of prerequisite maps for determining who owns what land; the non-explicit demarcation of urban and rural areas, and the assumption that the prerequisite national cadastre and geospatial data infrastructure, which are very essential for any land tenure reform, were available. 

− Lack of Political Will by Government

Each succeeding Federal Government since the promulgation of the Act had exhibited lack of political will to implement various provisions of the Act to make it succeed. The Act made allowance for transitional provisions for the orderly assimilation of the land tenure systems it hoped to replace, but 30 years, after these other land tenure systems are still being operated. 

− Operation of the Land Use 

The operation of the land Use Act by its “trustees” – the State Governors and local government Chairmen had been characterized by its use as political weapon, lack of transparency, arbitrary and selective administration of its provisions. 

− Lack of Security of Tenure 

The Act has not succeeded in removing the uncertainties in title to land; instead, it seems to accentuate it. It does not protect small scale peasant farmers who continually lose their farm lands through acquisition for urban expansion and large-scale acquisition of land for commercial agriculture, most of which are speculative, without paying adequate compensation.

SHORTCOMINGS OF THE LAND USE ACT OF 1978 CONT.

− Consent Provision 

The requirement of obtaining consent of the governor for statutory right of occupancy or local government for customary rights of occupancy holders before transaction in land can be effected is cumbersome and expensive. It is antithesis to a dynamic market land economy. 

− Land Titling 

The process of obtaining title to land is expensive and tedious, consequently 30 years after its operation less than 3% of land in the country, mainly in the urban areas, is covered by title deeds. 

− The Philosophy of the Act 

The philosophy of the Act, that all land belongs to the state; all undeveloped land has no value and hence has no market value; and that there is no freehold of land deterred the development of market land economy in Nigeria. The Act abolished freehold and nationalised all lands in Nigeria. 

− Abolition of Freehold Title to Land

The Act abolished the existing freehold title to land and limits the title that can be granted under it to leasehold interests not exceeding 99 years. Thus under the act all allottees of state land and owners of properties covered by a Certificate of Occupancy became tenants of the State.

LAND REFORM IN NIGERIA

• Nigeria is mainly an agrarian society and until oil was discovered some 50 years ago, agriculture used to be the principal foreign exchange earner for the country. Even now that the economy is dominated by the oil and gas sector, 60% of the workforce is employed in the agricultural sector largely dominated by non-commercial farming.

• The land use pattern is estimated as follows: arable land is about 33% of the total land area, permanent pastures cover 44%, permanent crops cover 3%, forest and woodlands 12%, and others 8%. Thus land is still the main asset of the rural Nigerians where over 80% are peasant farmers; however this asset has not been fully utilized for economic empowerment because they do not have proper records and titles that can be used as collateral to raise capital.

• It is in an attempt to economically empower the vast majority of Nigerians, who are rural dwellers, by turning their land holdings to economic capital, that the current Federal Government of Nigeria initiated the Land Reform Agenda.

WOMEN ACCESS TO LAND IN NIGERIA• Throughout the world, women constitute a large port ion of the economically active population

engaged in agriculture, both as farmers and as farm workers, and play a crucial role in ensuring household food security, despite enjoying very limited rights to land. In many countries, the role of women in agricultural production has increased in recent years as a result of men’s migration to urban areas and absorption in nonagricultural sectors. However, in many parts of the world, women have little or no access to resources such as land, credit and extension services. Moreover, women tend to remain concentrated in the informal sector of the economy. In plantations, they often provide labour without employment contracts, on a temporary or seasonal basis or as wives or daughters of male farm workers

• In many developing countries and particularly in Nigeria, women have few choices in life- going into marriage and the resultant child bearing. Their rights as individuals are most often denied because they are women. The society actually considers them as 'second class' citizens who should not have a say in the decision affecting the family, the society and the nation of which they form integral part. And so the women has no access to land; a culture fostered by reasoning that the woman will be married out to another family and ‘take’ the land when she goes.

 

• Women’s access to land in Nigeria is especially limited in the Southeast and South where cultural norms and traditions forbid a woman to own land. In spite of the increased awareness about gender equality issues in the past three decades, these cultural dictates have been largely unchallenged at the local level where it matters most. More advocacy and knowledge on gender equality is needed to change the status of women in local communities many of whom are suffering needlessly as a result of ignorance and discrimination.

 

• Land rights are usually conceived of as the rights to use, enjoy and exploit land including information about, decision – making around and benefits from the latter. Women’s land rights are fragile and transient, being dependent upon age and marital status (including type of marriage and the success of that marriage), whether they had children (including the number and sex of those children) and their sexual conduct. And, inspite of the Nigerian Land Use Act of 1978, which restructured the property rights system in the country from a mixed private property rights system into a collectivist framework, concerns about women’s land rights persist. Thus, the impact of inequality in land rights has aggravated women’s socio – economic status.

HOW SOME WOMEN WERE ABLE TO SECURE LAND TITLE

• Most families originated from polygamous marriages because in the past most men married more than one wife, in fact some men laugh at those who married only one wife that they are weaklings. The polygamous practices carried along with it numerous problems that is still affecting peoples lives today.

 • There was a man who married fifteen wives and had seventy children. He had only two

bungalows what he did was to keep each wife in a one room apartment with her children. He was not concerned about the welfare of the children the responsibility was left for the women to carry. When the died, the issue of who owns the land arose and the children had to fight to the point of almost killing themselves. Their mothers had to intervene pleading with the children that the room that belong to each one should be the property of the children belonging to that particular women. The eldest son felt that his right was been infringed on and was ready to sell all the fathers property irrespective of the number of children the man had before he died. This is just one of thousands of cases that occurs regularly in Nigeria.

• My inspiration was drawn from a man whom I termed a ‘wise man’. His first wife died after seven children and he re-married and the second wife had eight children. The man had fifteen children in all. Being an enlightened man and knowing the problems that could occur from extended family and even his children after his death did not want his family to go through any form of hardship at age seventy five called all his children (who by now were very successful, not minding their position in the society) for a meeting. In that meeting he brought the documents of all his properties and asked each one to pay a token fee of Five thousand Naira which is about thirty five dollars. He then drew a deed of transfer for each of them indicating that the property belong to him or her, of course his wife was not left out. The man died at the age of eighty five and was buried.

HOW SOME WOMEN WERE ABLE TO SECURE LAND TITLE CONT.• As with the custom of place his of origin, when a man dies and he is buried after twelve

calendar months the family gathers to celebrate the one year remembrance and then the man’s property is shared by his kinsmen among his children. This was what happened in this case. When the kinsmen called the children to share their father’s property according to them for peace to reign the children patiently waited for the elders to complete their mission. The kinsmen not knowing what their father did, started distributing the property the way they deem fit. To their utmost surprised everyone brought out his or her did of transfer and asked the eldest of the kinsman what property the wanted to share. One could imagine the surprise on the kinsmen faces who by now would have allotted some properties to themselves. Knowing that there was no property left to be shared and that their brother has bequeathed his properties to his children left the meeting downcast raining abuses on their late brother saying that he was a foolish and stingy man who refused to leave anything for his kinsmen.

 

• With the foregoing and the experience of the author who is a Surveyor with great experience of over eighteen years of practice of surveying in Nigeria and knowing how women and their children had been suffering from the hands of extended family members especially after the demise of their husband had to use her professional expertise to advise clients who own more than a single plot of land about a thousand square meters (1000m) to share their properties to their wives and children, which includes the female children.

 

• Over the years the author discovered that it yielded positive fruit as wife’s of client came back to thank her for sustaining their lives and that of their children especially after the death of their husband. Encouraged with these reports, the author went further and started counseling clients even those with single plots to re-survey their land and now including the names of their spouses so that in case of any eventuality, the woman is not left without anything.

PLAN SHOWING THE SURVEY BELONGING TO MR. DAVID UMOLO OTOBO

PLAN SHOWING THE SURVEY BELONGING TO MR. & MRS. ELIJAH IBINAYIN

CONCLUSION / RECOMMENDATION

Enhancing women’s land rights requires that they become a political priority and a legal possibility; it also requires administrative viability, social acceptability, and moral legitimacy. − Therefore, complementary policies must address women’s limitations in exercising and enjoying their land rights. Even with assured land rights, investments in property require access, financial markets and information, extension, and other services.

− Women must know what rights to land they can claim arid how to claim those rights.

− The land professional do not have a say in policy development in Nigeria as they are not in positions where policies are made. As a result land professionals should involve themselves in politics so as to be in position to make policies about land that will be of benefit to the people.

− Land professionals should see themselves as a bridge itself and not bridging the gap. To do this effectively, communication is the key.

− Also, the land professional should act globally and think locally by advocating, mediating and arbitrating properly. This could save thousands of lives from hardship and poverty thereby making the world a better place to live in.