Impact of the Nigerian Land Use Act on Economic Development in the Country

• Main Author: Matthew Enya Nwocha
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Danubius University 2016-12-01
• Series: Acta Universitatis Danubius: Administratio
• Subjects: Land Use Act; right of occupancy; statutory right of occupancy; customary right of occupancy; economic development
• Online Access: http://journals.univ-danubius.ro/index.php/administratio/article/view/3976/3872

This paper appraises the Nigerian Land Use Act and its capacity to engender economic development and prosperity. The Land Use Act was enacted in 1978 with the aim of energizing economic development by ensuring effective and equitable utilization of land and land resources in the country. As this paper has found out, however, achieving this lofty objective has been hampered by two major obstacles. The first is the inherent contradictions and defects in the law, and the second is institutional weakness and lack of political will to implement the Act fairly and equitably. The paper has further discovered that the result of these anomalies is a failure of the Act to accomplish some of its major objectives. To re-focus the Act and secure economic development and easy access to land by both government and the citizens, the paper has recommended the amendment of certain provisions of the Act in addition to mustering the political will by government to implement the amended version of the Act in a fair and equitable way.