Nigeria: States seek review of land law to boost investment

This Day | 20 September 2011 
Medium_fulani-herd-migration

Crusoe Osagie

State governments across the country are seeking the review of the Land Use Act as part of measures to facilitating easy access to land, especially to encourage Foreign Direct Investment (FDI).

This was one of the highpoints of a communique issued at the end of a two-day retreat organised by the Ministry of Trade and Investment for the 36 state commissioners in charge of trade and investment in Abuja weekend.

The theme of the retreat was 'Creating Jobs, Generating Wealth and Enhancing Economic Growth'.

In Nigeria, the Land Use Act of 1978, vests the ownership of land on the Governor of each state. This means that the state governors are statutorily responsible for the allocation of land in their respective states, while the Minister of the Federal Capital Territory oversees the allocation of land in the nation's capital, Abuja.

However, participants noted that although there currently exist land registries in each state of the federation, there had been little effort on the part of the state governments to computerise the land registries.

They also expressed concern that since all transactions on land require the Governor's consent subject to registration with land registry, the process of obtaining Certificate of Occupancy was often expensive, time-consuming and frustrating. This situation, they said, constituted serious barrier to investment.

In order to remove the bottlenecks associated with the acquisition of land for investment, they stressed that there was an urgent need to simplify existing land procedures for effective title and consent delivery.

The communique stated that, "One of the major problems militating against attracting FDI in Nigeria is the current provisions of the Land Use Act. There is an urgent need for the Federal Government to review it with a view to making it proactive, investor-friendly and easier for land to be used as collateral.

"In order to achieve this objective, state governments should ensure speedy access to Certificates of Occupancy and Governor's Consent to complement the efforts of the Federal Government in facilitating investment into the country", the communiqué added.

It stated, "The Land Registry in all the states should be digititalised; the concept of Geographical Information System, as applicable in Abuja, should be replicated in all the states. Governors should be encouraged to delegate powers to appropriate officers in the states to approve and sign Certificates of Occupancy.

"Similarly, there is a need to prevail on the governors to create industrial layouts in all Local Government Areas of their states and also pay compensation on land acquired for investment purposes", it added.

Commending the efforts of the Ministry of Trade and Investment towards facilitating the inflow of FDI into the country, participants, however, stressed the need for closer collaboration among Ministries, Departments and Agencies of the government in order to successfully drive the Transformation Agenda of the current administration.

"We appreciate the efforts of the Federal Government towards encouraging investors and would-be investors under the Investment climate reforms intended to examine the overall investment environment with a view to rigid laws and other legal barriers to investment," the state commissioners said in the communique.

Speaking during the Retreat, the Minister of Trade and Investment, Mr. Olusegun Aganga, said the objective of the retreat was to explore the investment opportunities in the states and encourage the states to key into the new investment drive of the Federal government.

He said, "The new focus of the Ministry of Trade and Investment is to attract investment, promote trade and export, enhance the productivity of local industries and develop the Small and Medium Scale Enterprises. In order to achieve this, we are committed towards working with the private sector to remove the barriers to trade and investment by improving the overall investment climate.

"The new focus of the ministry is to create jobs and generate wealth for the average Nigerian so that they can feel the impact of the policies and programmes of the government", he added.
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