BusinessDay 30 Mar 2018

6 BUSINESS DAY C002D5556
NEWS
Friday 30 March 2018
Land administration: Realtors differ on Land Use Act impact 40 years after
CHUKA UROKO
Real estate professionals
and sundry
stakeholders have
expressed divergent
views on the
impact the Land Use Act has
made on land administration
in Nigeria 40 years after the
Act was enacted by the then
military administration under
Olusegun Obasanjo, precisely
on March 29, 1978.
While some of the professionals
say the Act has performed
so badly that it is the
reason for all the pitfalls in
real estate investment and the
sector’s slow growth, others
insist that the land law is the
UBA rewards high
performance, promotes
2,000 across Africa
ENDURANCE OKAFOR
In line with its commitment
to reward excellence
and high performance,
Pan-African
financial institution, United
Bank for Africa (UBA) Plc,
has announced the promotion
and elevation of about
2000 of its work force, representing
about 17 percent
of total staff strength across
the group.
This is in recognition of
the remarkable contribution
the staff members have
made to the bank’s business
growth as highlighted by
the impressive performance
recorded in its recently released
2017 financial year
end results.
The announcement,
which came on Monday, is
especially heartening in the
face of the numerous economic
challenges faced by
major financial institutions
on the continent, most of
who are yet to recover from
the impact of the recessive
business climate that rocked
many companies in 2016 and
a greater part of last year.
It is important to note
that about a year ago, the
bank had promoted 3,000
staff members, 25 percent of
its workforce, while also doling
out cash rewards to deserving
staff for exemplary
conduct and performance
that year.
This year’s promotion, as
with others, have been commended
by human resource
analysts who have noted
that UBA, which was mentioned
in a recent survey as
one of the “Best 100 Companies
To Work For in Nigeria”
has become synonymous
with rewarding excellence.
The announcement has also
been greeted with joy and
enthusiasm by the workforce
of the bank.
The affected staff that cut
across all units, divisions
and 19 countries where UBA
operates were selected after
the completion of appraisal
system that identified high
performers in the bank
among other criteria.
… link real estate slow growth, investment pitfalls to the Act
best thing to happen to land
administration in the country.
“I don’t support the abrogation
of the Act which many
people have called for over
the years,” Olufemi Babalola,
CEO, Gravitas Investment
Limited, the developers of
Gracefield Island in Lekki,
Lagos, said.
He recalled that before
the Act, there was the communal
land ownership system
which, he explained,
stifled development in real
estate, agriculture, industrial
concerns, etc, pointing that
the use of a parcel of land for
any of these purposes could
be stalled if there is just one
dissenting voice among the
native owners.
“The Land Use Decree,
which later became an Act,
was promulgated to take care
of situations like this and so
rested ownership of the land
on the state governors who
hold the land in trust for the
people”, Babalola explained,
adding, “but because some
of the governors are lazy and
un-resourceful, a lot of things
have gone wrong with the
Act.
Continuing, he said, “the
law created a central land
registry; it created a good
land administration, but the
governors are lazy. So, it is
not the law that is bad, but
the operators that make it
look as if it is bad”.
But Chudi Ubosi, an estate
surveyor and valuer, reasons
differently. According to
him, though the objectives of
the Act were, no doubt, lofty
and well-intentioned, it has
turned out to be defective in
many respects, contending
that “the time for its review in
tune with current realities is
long overdue.”
Quoting a data from the
World Bank’s Ease of Doing
Business 2017, Ubosi point-
ed out that as a result of the
provisions of the Act, property
registration in Nigeria
takes an average of 77 days to
achieve as against 59.7 days
in sub-Saharan Africa and
22.4 days in high income Organization
for Economic Cooperation
and Development
(OECD) countries.
“Registering properties
in sub-Saharan Africa in
general and Nigeria in particular
is evidently tough as
demonstrated by the report”,
he said, adding, at an average
of 10.10 percent, Nigeria
is among sub-Saharan Africa
countries with the highest
cost of registration as a percentage
of property value;
the average in sub-Saharan
Africa is 8.00 percent and
4.20 percent in high income
OECD countries.
MKO Balogun, GMD/
CEO at Global Property &
Facilities International Limited,
stressed in an emailed
response to our questions
that one of the biggest problems
around the Land Use
Act is the process of acquiring
the Certificate of Occupancy
from the state governor or
the president in the case of
the Federal Capital Territory
(FCT) in Abuja.