48-year Land Use Act due for review – Shettima

The Vice President, Kashim Shettima, says the 48-year-old Land Use Act is due for review and reform.

Shettima, represented by the Deputy Chief of Staff to the President, Ibrahim Hadejia, made this known at a recent three-day National Land Conference 2025 in Abuja.

The Vice President said the Land Use Act of 1978 had been the legal and policy framework for land ownership, management, and administration in Nigeria.

According to him, although the act has significantly shaped land administration and management in Nigeria, it has also contributed to systemic challenges that must now be addressed.

He said, “However, the Act, now 48 years old, is undeniably due for review and reform. The time has therefore come for a thorough reassessment to identify necessary amendments and ensure its relevance in the evolving socio-economic landscape.

“Analysts have criticised the Land Use Act as an impediment to Nigeria’s socio-economic development, underscoring the need for a comprehensive review to realign its policies with the goals of sustainable growth, equity and efficiency.”

Shettima said in line with that, the current administration inaugurated four reform task teams in January 2024.

This, he said, was to develop a strategic blueprint for implementing reforms aimed at streamlining land administration and ensuring easy, cost-effective, and efficient access to land in Nigeria.

He added that the current administration was committed to the idea of the national land commission and had taken major steps towards its realisation by draughting an executive bill for its creation before the National Assembly.

The Director-General of NIPSS, Prof. Ayo Omotayo, said NIPSS gathered together stakeholders in the building ecosystem to explore what the land and resource system has been.

He explained that this was aimed at coming up with new ideas and making recommendations to the government.

He said, “Today, we are sitting here believing that in this three-day conference, we will be able to look back, reflect, and ask hard questions concerning land. For us at the National Institute, what matters to us is developing Nigeria to be what the founding fathers wanted it to be. Our motto is towards a better society.

“We want to fulfil one of our mandates, which is to research and reflect on matters of national interest,” he said.

Omotayo said that for the current administration’s Renewed Hope Agenda to succeed fully, there was a need to look at the land and resource system, and that was what the conference aimed to achieve.

Also speaking, the president and founder of the Johnbull Amayaevbo Foundation, Johnbull Amayaevbo, said the conference aimed to redefine land governance as a catalyst for Nigeria’s sustainable development.

Amayaevbo said that despite Nigeria’s abundant land resources, the land governance framework remained encumbered by outdated policies, inconsistent implementation, and administrative bottlenecks.

He said this had made Nigeria rank 169th out of 190 countries in registering property, according to the World Bank’s Ease of Doing Business Index.

Amayaevbo added that the International Finance Corporation estimated that only three per cent of Nigeria’s urban land was formally registered.

The president said the Food and Agriculture Organisation reported that Nigeria loses approximately 350,000 hectares of forest annually due to unsustainable land use and called for urgent intervention in land management.

He said the conference would become an annual platform where experts, stakeholders, and policymakers would continue to engage, evaluate progress, and propose pragmatic solutions for land governance reform.

Amayaevbo said key proposals included the establishment of an Office of the Valuer-General, modernisation of land administration laws, enhancing land tenure security, and sustainable land management practices, among others.

He said, “As we embark on the journey towards land governance reform in Nigeria, let us draw inspiration from global best practices while remaining grounded in our unique socio-cultural and economic context. The reforms we propose today must be bold, yet practical; visionary, yet actionable.

“They must prioritise inclusivity, ensuring that no segment of society is left behind in the pursuit of sustainable development.”