Land

Media360Impact Editorial

Abuja was conceived as a planned capital with orderly roads, defined districts, green corridors, and predictable growth. Yet, for many residents and investors, land administration in the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) still feels like a maze: overlapping claims, opaque processes, “missing files,” abrupt demolitions, and costly delays that punish the law-abiding while rewarding gatekeepers.
If Nigeria wants a capital city that signals confidence and rule of law, Abuja’s land system must move from paper titles to public trust fast.

The promise and the problem
By law, land in each state vests in the Governor; in the FCT, that stewardship rests with the Minister. In practice, the system relies on agencies responsible for policy, cadastral mapping, allocation, titling, development control, and resettlement/compensation. Abuja Geographic Information Systems (AGIS) was created to modernize this chain, yet too many transactions still hinge on manual steps, off-system approvals, or physical files vulnerable to delay and manipulation.

The effects are real:
• Uncertainty for homeowners and investors: Multiple allocations or forged consents undermine finance and long-term planning.
• Compliance fatigue: When honest applications take months while shortcuts sail through, public confidence erodes.
• Unplanned growth: Informal settlements and speculative subdivisions outpace infrastructure, prompting reactive demolitions that carry social and political costs.
• Original inhabitants left behind: Resettlement and compensation frameworks often lag, breeding grievances and litigation.

What good looks like
A credible land regime is predictable, searchable, and enforceable:

1. Predictable: Clear fees, timeframes, and steps for allocations, Certificates of Occupancy (C of O), consents, and building approvals.
2. Searchable: Anyone can verify parcel status, encumbrances, and approvals online in minutes.
3. Enforceable: Development control is even-handed; violations are deterred by certain, swift, proportionate sanctions, not by selective crackdowns.

Five structural fixes Abuja must make now
1) Go fully digital, no parallel paper track
• End-to-end e-processing for allocations, C of O, consent to assign/mortgage, and building permits.
• Single unique parcel ID across all agencies; every action stamped to that ID with a public audit trail.
• Mandate e-payments only with auto-receipting to shut down informal charges.

2) Radical transparency by default
• Open Cadastre Portal: Parcel boundaries, land use, title status (pending/issued/encumbered), liens, and court caveats (with privacy-safe redactions).
• Service Level Agreements (SLAs): Publish processing timelines (e.g., consent in 15 working days; building approval in 30–45). Missed SLAs trigger automatic fee rebates.
• Public dashboard: Weekly stats on applications received, approved, queried, or refused, disaggregated by district and application type.

3) Clean the legacy book
• Independent audit of allocations, revocations, and regularizations since inception; reconcile duplicates; cancel ghost titles; and publish outcomes.
• One-time amnesty/regularization window with strict verification to bring long-standing informal parcels onto the grid, paired with infrastructure levies rather than blanket demolitions.

4) Fair resettlement and infrastructure-first growth
• Resettlement compacts with original communities: Transparent valuation, mixed compensation (cash + serviced plots), and time-bound delivery of schools, health posts, and transit.
• Infrastructure Sequencing: No new large-scale allocation without a funded plan for roads, water, power, drainage, and waste tied to developer obligations and performance bonds.

5) Finance that lowers, not raises, risk
• Standardized templates for deeds, mortgages, and consents to speed up bank lending.
• Title insurance/indemnity bonds (public-private) for first buyers in regularized areas.
• Green-lane approvals for affordable housing and rental projects meeting defined targets (unit mix, price caps, local jobs).

Development control must be firm and fair
Abuja’s skyline can’t be governed by negotiation at the site gate. Development control needs consistent inspections, QR-coded site permits verifiable by residents, and graduated penalties: stop-work orders, fines, mandatory rectification, and, only as a last resort, demolition.

Every enforcement action should be pre-noticed online, with photos, violations cited, and an appeals window. The rule of law is strengthened when citizens can see the rulebook and the reasons before the bulldozer.

Curb the “middleman premium”
When official pathways are slow or opaque, middlemen thrive. Abuja can collapse that premium by:
• Offering same-day certified searches (online) for a flat fee;
• Creating a one-stop consent desk for banks and law firms with tracked tickets;
• Publishing fee schedules and contact points and enforcing disciplinary action for any official who seeks “facilitation.”

Inclusion is not optional
Land policy is social policy. A credible system protects widows’ and orphans’ rights in intestate estates; recognizes women as co-owners on titles; and ensures that persons with disabilities can access every service point. For young families and low-income workers, Abuja needs a serviced-plot program, community land trusts, and rental housing incentives so the city doesn’t price out the people who power it.

A realistic legislative pathway
Some bottlenecks trace back to the Land Use Act, which is unusually entrenched and harder to amend. Abuja should champion a targeted reform package clarifying timelines for governors’/ministers’ consent, recognizing digital instruments, and codifying open-data obligations while pushing constitutional actors for the heavier lifts. Meanwhile, much can be fixed administratively: digitization, SLAs, dashboards, and enforcement protocols don’t need an Act of Parliament, just executive will.

A 90–180–365-day action plan
Within 90 days
• Publish SLAs and fee schedules; launch a basic parcel-status search tool.
• Activate an Integrity Hotline with whistle-blower protection and monthly reports.
• Freeze manual “walk-in” approvals; all new applications must enter the e-queue.

Within 180 days
• Complete a legacy data clean-up for priority districts; issue replacement e-titles.
• Roll out e-consent and e-mortgage modules; integrate with banks and courts.
• Pilot regularization + infrastructure levy in one informal settlement with community oversight.

Within 365 days
• Full Open Cadastre Portal with live updates, enforcement notices, and appeals tracking.
• Independent annual audit of allocations, consents, and enforcement published.
• Launch affordable housing fast track with green-lane approvals and serviced-plot delivery.

The editorial bottom line
Abuja does not need to invent a new land philosophy; it needs to execute one digitally, transparently, and fairly. A title that cannot be trusted is just expensive paper; a plan that cannot be enforced is a suggestion.

If the FCT makes its land records open, its processes time-bound, its enforcement even-handed, and its growth infrastructure-led, it will unlock cheaper finance, faster housing delivery, and a culture of compliance that outlasts any single administration.

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