Review land use Act for diverse benefits, don urges FG

A senior lecturer at the Federal University of Technology, Minna (FUTMINNA), Niger state, Professor Muhammad Bashar Nuhu, has called on the federal government to speedily and comprehensively review the ‘Land Use Act’ for it to properly serve the purposes it was promulgated.

Nuhu, who is the first professor of Estate Management and Valuation in Northern Nigeria, gave the charge while delivering the 72nd professorial inaugural lecture of FUTMINNA, recently.

The Caverton lecture theatre at the Gidan Kwano campus of the school, was the venue of the lecture themed: “Land safety: How secured?”

Nuhu, while explaining that Land Use Act of 1978 is the framework for land policy and administration in the country, said the 1978 Act also vests proprietary rights of land on the state, grants rights in land to individuals, and also adopt the use of an administrative system in the allocation of rights in land.

He added that the land acquisition and system of compensation adopted by private developers is by agreement, while that of the government is through expropriation/compulsory take-over of land for road construction, parks and other service facilities, after cash-based or replacement compensation to the actual owners.

Aside the cost of buying land, the inaugural lecturer, said the issue of land registration is no longer a difficulty with recent advancement in the use of satellite imagery, especially the Geographical Information System (GIS), as well as the Geographical Positioning System (GPS).

Nuhu, a former commissioner of tertiary education in Niger state, while calling on FG to invest in land for developmental purposes, opined that some amendments should be made to the Land Use Act in order to free it from ambiguities.

“In addition to providing genuine commitment for full implementation, there is the need for a review of the high cost of Certificate of Occupancy (C of O) and other administrative bottlenecks.  Hence, the need for a critical land reform in order to facilitate the effective utilisation of land resources.

“On the other hand, the key ingredients for securing access to land include having a transparent and inclusive processes for land policy development, people-centred land policies, gender equity in access to land, policies reflecting diverse tenure systems, redistributive reforms as an integral policy tool, innovative and accessible systems for the recognition of land rights, and developing systems for the monitoring of land rights,” he stated.

The chairman of the occasion and vice chancellor, Professor Abdullahi Bala, congratulated Nuhu for delivering his inaugural lecture barely few months after the institution’s governing council approved his promotion to the rank of a professor.

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