Under the present legal regime,
individuals can not own land, the only interest individuals can have in land is
right of occupancy. Right of occupancy may be statutory or customary depending
on the lex situs of the land in question. Under S.5 (1), the Governor can grant
statutory right of occupancy to individuals in respect of land in urban area
and issue certificate of occupancy as evidence of the grant, while the local
government has power under S.6 (1) to grant customary right of occupancy in
respect of land in non – urban areas.
The question now arises as to
what happens to the title of an “owner” of a land after the promulgation of the
Act? S.34 (2) of the Act provides that where the land is in an urban area and
in developed state, the holder shall be allowed to hold such land as if he was
a holder of a statutory right of occupancy granted by the Governor and thus, he
becomes a “Deemed Holder” of right of occupancy. A Deemed Holder is defined in
Yakubu v Abioye as the
person entitled to a right of occupancy and includes the beneficiary of the
deemed right of occupancy.
On the other hand, if the land is
in an urban area and undeveloped, the Act provides that a plot or portion
thereof should be given to the holder.
And where the holder has several undeveloped plots in an urban area, the holder
should be given half (1/3) an hectare out of his total holding cooperation or any other body (whether cooperate or
unincorporated) or any company wholly owned by the Federal Government, like the
federal government, any such agency retains and holds the absolute and
beneficial ownership of all lands, whether located in Nigeria, vested in the
agency as at the commencement of the Land Use Act, whether such lands are
developed or undeveloped and whether occupied or unoccupied.
Examples of such lands are; lands
the ownership of which had been transferred, granted or donated to the agency
by any government or organization, or which the agency itself had otherwise
acquired or purchased. Again S. 49 (1) of the Act provides that nothing in the
Act shall affect the title of the agency in such lands.