Appraisal Of The Requirements Of Proving Land Ownership

1.0 Introduction
Land is undoubtedly a major factor in the social and economic development of every country; it is perhaps the most important natural resources, in the sense that it affects every aspect of people’s lives.

The word “Land” have various meaning depending on the use and content which they are used, in ordinary sense “Land” is the solid dried surface part of the earth surface.

Proof of title to land is the protection and degree of control which a person has over any given land to buttress the ownership claims to a land and title registration is mainly to protect property rights, to facilitate transactions in land, and to enable land title to be used as collateral for loan. System of land title registration identifies each individual land parcel and provides confirmation by the state that the person named in the register has specified property right in that parcel.

A unified, integrated system of land title registration confers many benefits. For individual, it offers security for tenure, a reduced likelihood of ownership or boundary disputes, simple and less costly land transactions, greater access to credit, and increased market value. For a government administration, it represents a major component of a land information system, assists land use planning and development, improves the land market, stimulates investigation and creates a basis for land taxation. For a society, it can help promote the peaceful, orderly and wise utilization of the natural land resources.

Land ownership in Nigeria before colonial rule, the predominant land tenure system in Nigeria during the pre-colonial period was the customary land tenancy where land holdings were obtained by villages, towns, communities.
Thus, individual has no such interest as the fee simple absolute in possession as the actual ownership of land or absolute interest in the community itself.

In every ethnic group, there was an organized system of land holdings “There is no uniform land law sparing the length and breath of Nigeria. Every locality has land tenure system the principles of which are in the peculiar knowledge”.

This is a result of the different ethnic culture background of our people nevertheless, there exist a common feature. To this end, customary law and received English law has the concept of ownership to land, the Supreme Court has followed its own decisions in variety of cases. In Elegushi V. Oseni and also in the case of Idundun V. Okumagba, the Supreme Court stated that “pertinently”, there are five ways of establishing the ownership of land, which this topic seeks to address.

Primary sources include doctrinal, statutes, case law and secondary materials including textbooks, journal articles, newspapers, magazines and dictionary. The approach will mainly be analytical and the ways of presentation will mainly be very simple, and easy to understand. All these are aimed at land ownership and a comparative analysis of the requirements of proving Land Ownership in Nigeria.

This study deals with Land Ownership and the various ways of owning or requirements of proving Land Ownership in Nigeria.

I shall consider the key points of the topic which constituted the meaning of land, ownership, possession of land and the nature of ownership and proof of ownership in Nigeria.

Nigeria, as in practically all the former British West African colonies, ownership of land in the accepted English sense is unknown. Land is held under community ownership, and not, as a rule, by the individual as such, it is true that the impact of English ideas of property law upon indigenous conceptions, largely due to (a) the efforts of practicing African lawyers trained in English law;

But, before we stop to examine the real nature of this community ownership we may well pose the legal problem: assuming that land in Nigeria is collectively owned, in whom is legal title? Now with regard to the former colony, there are at least four possible hypothesis on which jurist could frame an answer:

That the real ownership of land in the former colony was by the treaty of cession of 1861 vested in the British crown to which belong, in constitutional theory, all the territories of the British common wealth and empire;
That king Docemo of Lagos owned all Lagos and adjacent lands forming the old colony and which he ceded to the British crown in 1861.

1.3 Aims and Objectives

This project aims to address the concept of land ownership in Nigeria giving a comparative analysis of the requirement of proving land ownership in Nigeria and the legal effect created under the Land use act as opposed to customary ownership that was predominant in Nigeria before the promulgation of the Land use act.

This work will discuss more on land registration an important role in a community, provided the functions effectively, through different countries possess specific land registration. Land registration system in Nigeria involves three principal systems of recording the right/ownership to land. These include: Private conveyance, Registration of title, Registration of deeds.

But, before going into all that, we must first know or have a clear understanding of the meaning of land, ownership, possession. Which will be discussed in this project.

…chapter one continues