The Land Use Act and the State of Nigerian Land Law

Abstract

The Land Use Act, 1978, is a product of the inherent contradictions of the colonial and neo-colonial dependent, pseudo-capitalist economic structures established in Nigeria since colonial times. By the 1970s these contradictions became so seŕious that they threatened to become a clog on the growth of the capitalist economy. If such contradictions were allowed to reach a nodal point, conditions for the self-negation of the existing socio-economic and legal order would have ensued. The legislature, it would seem, narrowly identified the problem with private ownership of lands from its own class perspective, that is without a scientific conception of the problems in terms of ownership in the theory of social relations. A scientific conception of the problems would have revealed the essence of the difficulties as relating, not merely to the procedural aspects of private ownership of the lands, such as certainty of title, registration of title, etc., but concerning the institution of private ownership as an economic and legal category around which the exploitation of man by man is organised in class-divided societies.Such a scientific perception of the problems would have demanded a lasting solution that not only abolished private ownership rights in land but also abolished private ownership of other means of production. The socialisation of all means of production would have amounted to a holistic approach to the solution of the problems in the interest of the nation as a whole.