ABSTRACT

This paper provides the legal history of land law reforms in Nigeria and the raisin d’ etre of the Land Use Act (LUA) 1978 contrary to its stated objectives. It posits that the key phrases in the LUA are double-speaks and euphemisms that provide citizens with no legal rights. It underscores how political power which seeks to gratify the interest of a militant minority and dominant group is often flaunted as national interest. It points out how the provisions of the LUA that land “be held in trust and administered for the use and common benefit of all Nigerians” in section 1 and the revocation of customary rights of occupancy for “overriding public interest” in section 28 have so far and ironically been carried out for the private and commercial interest of a select few. It ends by pointing out that there was no good reason for making the amendment of the LUA as difficult as amending the constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria itself (in section 274 of the 1979 constitution) (and now Section 315 of the 1999 Constitution) except to make it very difficult to dislodge the strangle hold of the caliphate on power and dominance.