As the new minister for Lands, Housing and Urban Development settles in to give meaning and direction to the change mantra of the Buhari administration, analysts are recommending a comprehensive land reform that will free up large parcels of unutilised land in various parts of Nigeria for productive activities.
The analysts observe that industrialisation, housing development, agriculture, mining, oil exploration and other economic and productive activities that lead to improved standards of living are possible only when land is available and harnessed for such purposes.
Sub-Saharan Africa, according to a World Bank Report on ‘How Africa Can Transform Land Tenure, Revolutionise Agriculture, and End Poverty’ is home to nearly half of the world’s usable, uncultivated land, but so far, Africa has not been able to develop these unused tracts, estimated at more than 202 million hectares, to dramatically reduce poverty and boost growth, jobs, and shared prosperity.
In Nigeria, the land tenure system and the Land Use Act enacted in 1978 by the then military government under Olusegun Obasanjo and an undeveloped mortgage system in the country, have been major obstacles to effective utilisation of land for housing, agriculture and manufacturing.
Edward Akinlade, a property developer, who is group managing director, Suru Group, wants the new minister to immediately initiate moves leading to the review of the Land Use Act. “For us in the housing sector, we expect the government to address two basic things. One is the Land Use Act and the other is interest rate on mortgage”.
Bode Adediji, former president of the Nigeria Institution of Estate Surveyors and Valuers (NIESV), in the same vein says that with a land area of about 973 million square kilometers of land and a population of 170 million people, it is an aberration for Nigeria with these potentials to suffer poverty, unemployment and homelessness for a large percentage of its population. Adediji further observes says that immediate action has to be taken on both the land tenure system and the Land Use Act, which, in his opinion, has overstayed its welcome.
The new minister has also been advised to leverage the Land and Landed Property Audit initiative of the immediate past administration, as he pursues the land reform drive because that initiative holds much promise for effective land administration in the country.
Towards the end of the Goodluck Jonathan administration, the Federal Government undertook auditing and inventory of its land and landed property, with the aim of identifying underutilised and dormant ones and freeing same for housing development, recognising that a large tranche of its landed property in various parts of the country were either locked in, or underutilised.
“The objective of this audit is to update our data base on the status of all federal lands and landed property in the country, in order to free under-utilised lands for housing development and also to optimise the use of all federal government landed property for productive purposes, Akon Eyakenyi, the then Minister for Lands, Housing and Urban Development, explained in Abuja.
This initiative was hailed by housing industry players, and according to Erejuwa Gbadebo, the CEO of Cluttons Nigeria, it was one of the best thing to come from the Federal Government. Gbadebo explained that one of the biggest problems in the housing sector was lack of data, and that it was such that people still quoted 17 million housing units deficit many years after, because there was no other data to prove or disprove it.
“One of the first things we should do, in addition to a comprehensive land reform, is to start taking stock of what is available—what house-types there are, and what they change hands for. There must be a way of capturing this data so that we can have accurate numbers that will help us to stop fighting a battle we may have won, or will never win”, she advised.
In doing all that he needs to do to make land available to all areas of need, the analysts advise further, that the new minister should as much as possible, work with professionals in land administration, which makes estate surveyors and valuers come quite handy.
“We are the only land economists in this country; we are specialists in land economy with the professional competence to handle and/or advise on land administration in this country. So, the government should involve us in all matters relating to land administration”, Offiong Samuel Ukpong, President, NIESV Lagos State Branch, advised the new government.
CHUKA UROKO
