FOLLOWING the ongoing moves by the National Assembly to amend sections of the Constitution that are no longer in tune with present realities, built environment experts and stakeholders have risen with one voice to call for the removal of the Act from the Constitution to make its amendment/review less cumbersome.

Immediate past President of the Nigerian Institution of Estate Surveyors and Valuers, NIESV, Mr. Bode Adediji who described the 1978 land legislation as anachronistic and anti-development however noted that it is not altogether a bad law. He however faulted its implementation and the lack of political will to review some policies that exhibit certain problems.

According to him, “a situation where two private companies and individuals would seek to borrow money and you have to go to the Governor of a State to get his consent before you can mortgage your property is totally anachronistic and anti-development”.

“If a bank trusts me to be able to give me money and I am pledging my property in return, Government , has no business in that transaction,” he said and called on the National Assembly to immediately review the Act.

His words: “These areas of deficiency in the Land Use Act are known to the powers that be, especially members of the National Assembly. Why has it taken them so long to make amendments to all these, when in the life of this nation, occasions have arisen in the past where they had to summon an emergency session to enact some fresh laws?

What we are saying is this; the seriousness of any government in any country could be determined by the passion, attention and time devoted to look into all documents relating to the enabling environment for business opportunities”.

Also speaking on the need to remove the Act from the Constitution so that it would be easy to amend, a Lagos-based private developer, Mr. Kelechi Mbagwu, said the law is no longer relevant in the scheme of things. Highlighting the bottlenecks developers go through in the process of acquiring land and the title documents, Mbagwu who is the Managing Director of CMB Building Maintenance and Investment Co. Limited, declared: “We don’t see the real use of the Act. It doesn’t make sense and should be scrapped”.

President of the Nigerian Institution of Estate Surveyors and Valuers, Mr. Emeka Eleh also admonished the National Assembly to seriously consider the amendment of the Land Use Act in the proposed review of the 1999 constitution.

Eleh made the plea in Benin City, shortly after he led his group on a courtesy call on the Oba of Benin .“We have already submitted a position paper on the on-going constitution review. We want the Land Use Act removed from the constitution because being in the constitution makes it difficult to amend. It is because that law is in the constitution that it has been difficult to amend, “ Mr. Eleh said.

As a fallout of the controversial legislation, the NIESV President disclosed that only about five percent of land in the country have titles, (this means that 95 percent of land in Nigeria are dead assets). He therefore called for urgent land reforms.

“No nation can develop without reforming its land tenure system to ensure that land owners have the legal and proprietary title to their land,” he said and enjoined the government to take steps that will ensure that land in the country is registered and covered by title to encourage investment and wealth creation among land owners.

According to him, land tenure system should be reformed to attract economic value because land is a major source of income for governments in developed countries. “If all land has title, it will be a major source of income for government in terms of ground rent and tenement rate collection. As it is now, it seems government is short-changing itself,” he said.

The Nigerian Institution of Surveyors, NIS has also joined estate surveyors in canvassing  for the removal of the Land Use Act from the Constitution to foster easy amendment.

Instead of making it a constitutional issue with all its encumbrances in terms of amendment, the NIS President, Mr. Bode Adeaga suggested that it should rather be made an Act of Parliament for easy amendment.

Adeaga said, “We have submitted memorandum on the Land Use Act, titling and mapping, land documentation and boundary issues. Our suggestion is that the Land Use Act, which vested ownership on the purview of state governments, be taken out of the constitution and made an Act of Parliament in other to simplify the process of amendment”.

He also argued that the Land Use Act undermined surveying profession, stressing that there was no place in it where the role of surveyors was mentioned.

Likely oppositions

Although all the built environment experts and stakeholders who spoke to VF were unanimous in calling for the removal of the Land Use Act from the Constitution so that it would be easy to amend, fears are rife that the various state governments and their chief executives, will use all their might to resist the present move to oust the act from the statute books.

As Mr. Mbagwu pointed out, a State like Lagos which rakes in billions of Naira from land transactions, would do everything to resist any attempt to amend the Act. Lagos sees land as its own black gold hence the various land use laws aimed at maximising proceeds from property owners in the State.

Apart from Lagos, other State Governors who utilise the Act as a potent weapon to settle political friends and deal with political foes, would also raise fronts against the removal of the Act from the Constitution. It would require at least 23 states voting for the amendment to sail through and experts fear that it may be hard to garner this figure in support of the expurgation of the Act from the Constitution.