THE EFFECT OF THE LAND USE ACT IN PROPERTY DEVELOPMENT (A CASE STUDY OF ENUGU URBAN)

The land use Decree No. 6 of 1978 otherwise popularly called Land Use Act was promulgated on 29th March, 1978, the effective date of the commencement of its operation in Nigeria. It is a statutory approach or device used by the federal government to consolidate and harmonize the diverse tenures prevalent in the country before the promulgation. It aims at ensuring the protection of the rights of all Nigerians to enable them to provide for the sustenance of themselves and their families.

It abolished the age long tradition of private ownership of land in the south and introduced a uniform system of land tenure through out the country.

Land tenure under this dispensation means that; one can not have an interest in land beyond the terms granted to him by the statute (usually 99 years) and such interest is renewable on expiration.

The act vests all land comprised in the territory of each state (except land vested in the Federal Government for its agencies) solely in the hands of the military governors of the state who would hold such land in true for the people.

Finally, the promulgation of this Act was as a result of two main factors;

Firstly, was the diversity of customary laws on land tenure and difficulty in applying the various customs of the different peoples.

The second factor was the rampant practice in southern Nigeria with regards to fraudulent sales of land. The same land would be sold to different persons at the same time giving rise to so many litigations.