The five-day annual Lagos Housing Fair ended at the weekend with a call by participants for the Land Use Act, which has been given various uncomplimentary descriptions by stakeholders, to be expunged from the constitution and reviewed. The fair which was the 11th in the series witnessed an array of exhibitors from both the private and public sectors, and also the cream of professionals in the built environment. With the theme, 'Access to Land and Housing Delivery' the fair, through paper presentations by experts in housing delivery and land management, examined factors inhibiting access to land and also highlighted strategies for promoting land administration, title documentation and land use planning.

Tinu Aina-Gbadebo, chairman of the Lagos Housing Fair Board, pointed out that inhibitions to access to land have been through such factors as uncoordinated policies at the various tiers of government as well as deficient land management system. According to her, concern had been on how to continue to cope with the inadequacies of the Land Use Act, stressing that after 33 years of its enactment, and in view of present realities, the law is due for review. "We must, as Nigerians, jointly prevail on the National Assembly to deliberately focus attention on amending the 1999 constitution by removing the Land Use Act from it", she said.

Bello Issa, executive director, Estate Services of the Federal Housing Authority (FHA), also called for a review of the Land Use Act as a way of introducing more flexibility in land acquisition and administration. Issa, who presented a paper on 'Access to Land and Housing Delivery: FHA's Thinking', lamented that land, which is the primary ingredient in any housing development, is currently difficult to access, noting that insecurity of rights, lengthy and expensive land transactions coupled with the absence of serviced lands increase the cost of construction which, in turn, makes housing affordability difficult.

In his own paper, Adeleke Adesina, a surveyor, observed that the objective of the Act which was enacted way back in 1978 was noble, but the implementation has been something else, explaining that some of the provisions of the Act were based on wrong assumption, especially the aspect that makes state governors trustees of the land in their domain in the hope that they would handle this trust in the best interest of the people.

"Unfortunately, our experience with this word 'trustee' since 1978 has been a complete opposite of what it is supposed to be; the public are now at the mercy of the governors to get access to land for development", he lamented, adding that by virtue of Section 28 of the Act, the governor has the power to revoke right of occupancy for overriding public interest, and also for breach of any provisions or terms of the Certificate of Occupancy. For increased access to land for housing delivery, Adeleke suggested that the Act be expunged from the constitution and thereafter, the section which made the state governors trustees over land should be expunged.

Furthermore, he suggested that the section of the Act that provides for Governor's Consent should also be expunged, explaining that the section which was meant to discourage land speculation, has failed to achieve that purpose. As part of the amendment of the Act, he said, the administrative procedure for land registration and acquisition of land title should be concluded within a very short time. "Apart from expunging the Land Use Act from the constitution and amending the offensive sections, public private partnership (PPP) should be extended to the issue of access to land", he suggested further.

Source: BusinessDay Online