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HISTORY AND MEANING OF LAND TITLES IN NIGERIA ( Part 1)

I have decided to write this article to educate people about the history of land titles in Nigeria as well as their meanings. I'm truly happy that many people have been really appreciating my articles on real estate since I started posting them online.
The law currently governing land use in Nigeria is called the Land Use Act. However, before the promulgation of the land use act, the use of land was exclusively in the hands of the traditional families. Traditional families had so much power under their control and decided who they want to allow to make use of the land. At this time, the major means of sustainance for most people was subsistence farming. People therefore needed to approach the traditional families to allow them to make use of the land to cultivate their farm products. The traditional families thus benefited from taking pleasure over all the rights given to the land users. Because of this sovereign power they wielded with land, they gave out lands to individuals under a tenancy system for them to use the land for farming while they still maintained control over the portion of the land given to the individual. It wasn’t until the creation of Lagos Executive Development Board in the 1950's that individuals were now able to acquire land from the board directly in exchange for a sum of money instead of going to meet the traditional families to obtain land.

This led to the Traditional Families now splitting their lands to keep some for the family use and others for sale to individuals directly to compete with the Lagos Executive Development Board. This system still made the Traditional Families exercise significant control with land they chose to sell and the ones they chose to keep. This eventually led to the birth of land speculation in Nigeria because lands were very expensive to purchase and difficult to obtain. This and other reasons finally led to the promulgation of the Land Use Decree on the 28th of March, 1978 that vested all lands in every state of the Federation under the control of the State Governors.

People could now directly obtain land from the Governor and the Governor could allocate land to the individual or Companies inquiring about land and issue Certificate of Occupancy to these people it has allocated land to.
The Land Use Act coupled with other laws made it possible for the Governor who was now in control of all lands in the state he governs to actually have the power to acquire more lands compulsorily for its own purpose to provide amenities for the greater good of the citizens.

The acquisition of land from the Family by the Governor who is now the custodian of all lands in the state was now empowered by the Land Use Act to take the general control and management of all urban land and any area designated as an urban area by the Governor. These land will subsequently be published in an official government record book known as the *Gazette.* Any area, community or village the Governor designates as an urban area is an acquired land and the rest of the land it has not acquired may be given back to the community it was acquired from in the form of an Excision.

EXCISION

An Excision is culled from the word "excise" which means "taking a part from a whole" . When a land is excised, it means the government has indicated that it doesn't have interest in that land and has given that part to the indigenes of that area to use as they please. The part that has now been excised will now be recorded and documented in the official government gazette of that state.”

GAZETTE

A Gazette is an official record book where all special government details are spelt out, detailed and recorded. A gazette will show the communities or villages that have been granted excision and the number of acres or hectares of land that the government has givent to them. It is within those excised acres or hectares that the traditional family is entitled to sell its lands to the public and not anything outside those hectares of land given or excised to them.

If they decide to sell anything outside the excised land, then that land is under acquisition by the government and it is a very bad land to buy.

Special Features of a Gazette include the following:

The first page of a Gazette must have the following unless it is a dubious or fake Gazette

� The Logo of the Country and the inscription of the title of the state. E.g. “LAGOS STATE OF NIGERIA OFFICIAL GAZETTE”
� Underneath, it must have the number, volume, page, date and the location it was signed into law. e.g. No 26, in pages 200 to 291, Volume 87, dated 14th of October 2010. The gazette will also contain the list of the villages, settlements and parcels of land excised back to the community.
The inner pages will show the following:
�The description of the area or village excised.
�The number of Acres or Hectares of land excised to the village or community.
�Where the boundaries of the excised land start and stop.
A Gazette is a very powerful instrument the community owns and serves as a good land title that the community or village head can use as evidence to sell land to people. A community owning a gazette can only sell lands to an individual within those lands that have been excised to them and the community or family head of that land has the right to sign your documents for you if you purchase lands within those excised acres or hectares of land. If the government based on some reasons best known to them decides to revoke or acquire your land, you will be entitled to compensation as long as it’s within the excised lands given to that community.

The best way to know whether a land is under government acquisition or has an excision that has been covered by a gazette is to get a surveyor to chart the site and take it to the Land Bureau to confirm whether the land intended for purchase falls within the excised land given to the community and to spell out which particular location it can be found....

To be continued.

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