Urban Poor and the challenges of access to Land in the Federal Capital Territory, Abuja

One major socio-political issue in Nigeria today particularly in the FCT is access to land, whereas access to land is critical to development and fundamental to shelter and other uses like Agriculture. The FCT has attracted a great number of migrants from other parts of the country which has resulted in increased pressure on land and infrastructures creating social and political problems like congestion and poor housing conditions, poor hygiene and health facilities and low level environmental sanitation.

The indigenous people are daily faced with relocation threats in which they lose their ancestral homelands to “development’’ with the little compensation offered brining only a short lived satisfaction. Oftentimes the compensation hardly reaches all persons affected Government in time past established Policies which failed to meet the needs of the poor because they were characterized by lack of adequate capacity, poor planning, high cost land, slow land release process and corruption. Another major setback has been the Land Use Act (LUA) 1978 which nationalizes and vests ownership of land within the territory of each state in the Governor (in the case of FCT the Minister) for the use and common benefits of every Nigerian further heightened insecurity of tenure and access to land. The widening income gaps and escalating land prices and formal land development processes tend to serve only those who can afford, excluding the poor in the formal land market.

The aim of the Land Use Act was to deal with problem of uncontrolled speculations in urban lands, make land easily access to every Nigerian irrespective of gender, unify tenure system in the country ensure equity and justice in land allocation and distribution and amongst others, prevent fragmentation of rural lands arising from the application of the traditional principle of inheritance. In spite of all these effort cost and processes involved in accessing land is deterrent especially for the poor therefore creating way Government and the rich only acquiring land for their use while the poor are alienated.

People can no longer go back home to ancestral land bestowed on them by their forefathers to farm or use for other purposes because Government now has ownership of such land. Of most concern to is the demolition of structures built by the people of informal settlements in the FCT and other part of Nigeria in the name of development or beautification despite policy commitment by Nigerian Government to Housing delivery. Government fails to recognize that informal settlements came about as a result of unequal access to land, housing & economic opportunities thereby inflicting untold hardships on majority of her citizenry.

It is time for all stakeholders to rise up and intensify effort towards providing the enabling environment for poor peoples’ access to land and security tenure.
It is our collective responsibility to make cities work for the poor and the formal land delivery systems are increasingly alienating the poor from seeking access to land and as such what can we do to remove all the impediments in the current systems of land supply?

Desmond Chieshe
Abuja, Nigeria