Abstract
Aim of this study is to determine if Governors’ powers of revocation under the Land Use Act 1978 (LUA) hinder sustainable land administration in Nigeria. LUA provides the legal framework for land administration systems in Nigeria. Section 1 of LUA vested absolute land ownership in Governors to hold in trust and administer for use and common benefit of all Nigerians. However, LUA is often depicted as the most contentious and fractious enactment in Nigeria’s legal history as it nationalised land ownership in Nigeria, expropriated allodial interests from people, and gave to Governors. It made fixed-term or finite occupancy rights as maximum interest available to people over land. Being imbued in militarism, it gave Governors wide and almost unrestrainable revocation powers.
Section 28 of LUA gave Governors revocation powers for both public and punitive purposes.
Done properly, revocations or compulsory purchase can be beneficial to communities. Even then, they are disruptive to those dispossessed, and can infringe on fundamental human rights. FAO (2008), thus, advises nation states to protect the dispossessed by complying with best practices in revocation procedures, which must include just compensation payments. Viitanen (2010) explains that use of revocation powers is part of land administration function. Sustainable land administration aims at optimising human land needs with environmental protection.
Sustainability, therefore, entails balancing People, Planet and Profit (Slaper and Hall, 2011).
LUA has authoritarian imprints of its military architects as it preserved Governors’ revocation powers in all circumstances. It ousted Courts’ jurisdiction in matters questioning legitimacy of revocations. It was made part of Nigerian Constitution, which makes its amendment difficult due to onerous modification requirements. Literature revealed that LUA bears extraordinary resemblance to Islamic Land Law (Harper, 2016; Facchini, 2007; and Siddiqi, 1978). There are justifiable suggestions that LUA’s promulgation was ostensibly part of wider domination and Islamisation agenda of Northern Hegemons, who control Nigeria’s military formation and its bureaucratic governance (Nwatu, 2013 and Nwaorgu, 2016). With these perceived imperfections, it may not deliver fair revocation processes needed for sustainable land administration. To achieve its aim, study set out three objectives namely: to determine and rank cultural themes that underpinned LUA, to establish if revocation powers under LUA comply with best practices, and to determine if Governors’ uses of revocation powers have acceptable sustainability credentials. Cultural themes here refer to factors that might have influenced promulgation of LUA by the Military, like reducing land cost, making land easily accessible to Government for development, curtailing inflation, making land available to all citizens, unification of land laws, religious considerations, domination agenda, and resources control.
Operating from pragmatic philosophical worldview, study engaged its logical affiliate Mixed Methods Research (MMR). MMR is mixing of quantitative and qualitative paradigms in a study.
It takes the strengths and offsets the disadvantages of each paradigm. Study used its Follow-up Explanatory Sequential Variant. This prioritises quantitative over qualitative data in timing, data collection, and weighting ascribed to findings. Here, initial quantitative phase provides broad understanding of research problems and aides the design of its qualitative stage, while ensuing qualitative leg validates achieved quantitative results. Study added Hegemonic Conflict Theoretical Framework to provide enriched and advanced explanations of findings.
Quantitative dataset was collected from 526 closed-ended questionnaires administered on stratified quota-cum-purposive sampling bases and dispensed by face-to-face and delivery and collection methods. Responses were subjected to descriptive and inferential statistical analyses with aid of Microsoft Excel® and SPSS® , respectively. Qualitative dataset was collected by means of 36 semi-structured interviews purposively and electronically sourced with WhatsApp® Video Call Application. Verbatim recording of interviews was done with aid of Call Recorder® for WhatsApp® and automatic transcription with Google Docs® for Android. Sorting, coding, and content analysis of transcriptions done with NVivo® software.
Study engaged syllogistic abductive reasoning to extract best-fit conclusions from findings.
Determinately, study found that propriety of LUA’s enactment is questionable, its promulgation parochial, and its enterprise underlyingly tendentious; and established domination agenda of Northern Hegemony as main driving force behind LUA’s enactment. Study determined that revocation powers under LUA are incompatible with recommended best practices and Governors’ use of these powers have low sustainability credentials. Thus, study justifiably concluded that Governors’ revocation powers hinder sustainable land administration.
Standing on Dewey’s Reflective Cycle Model that rejects absolutism and advances constructive revisionism, study recommends that for LUA to be capability of promoting sustainable land administration; it should be reviewed, made reflective as well as flexible. Study, therefore, prescribes use of its Triple-F Theory of Formation, Framework and Function in LUA’s overhaul.
Triple-F proffers that if LUA is formatted, it should generate best practice framework that would engenders optimal functionality in the application of revocation powers. This would in turn promote and boost sustainable land administration.