AN EVALUATION OF THE PROBLEMS OF LAND ADMINISTRATION IN KARSHI DEVELOPMENT AREA OF NASARAWA STATE

CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

1.1 BACKGROUND OF THE STUDY

Land is a basic resource as well as essential ingredient in all forms of human activities; it is also a primary condition of production. It is a resource for primary consequences in the economics of any country. Land provide us with living space, primary products it supports our material need and with opportunities satisfaction dear to our ways of life (Arowoto,1990).

The activities of the universe, which consist of all human endeavour depends on land. It is because of this overwhelming importance of land that the needs for land administration as a discipline is always in order to ensure proper and effective use of land and its resources. Government of various country of the world do not also relent their efforts in ensuring good and proper administration of land and its resource through the enactment of policies and measures to the development and use of land in order to curb the associated problems which are mostly brought about by the system of land tenure.

In Nigeria for example, before 26th March, 1978 the dual system of land tenure in operation generated administrative problems. Such problems include non availability of sufficient quality of land for development of meaningful government project, in alienation of land to strange which more pronounced in south, incessant or frequent cases of land liquidation and high cost of acquisition by the government, the consequent of which hindered rapid growth and development.

And as a result of this, a national law and policy, which wrecks to tenure system and deposition of land all over the country was promulgated (the land use decree NO 6 of 1978).

In Karshi development area, the proper and the effective administration of land has been by the allocation of land to provide an individual developer and government agencies. Granting of approval, the use and conservation of land, gathering of revenue through taxation, resolving of conflict concerning the ownership and use of land, monitoring and frequent inspection of site to ensure conformity of approve plan, enforcement of building codes and zoning ordinance and discourage misuse of land.

This study is therefore directed toward identifying the various constraints or problems militating against the effective administration of land in Karshi Development Area of Nasarawa State with a view to proffering useful suggestion in other to ameliorate them.

1.2 STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM

Karshi development area is face with a lot of problems for not using/adopting Land Administration the Societal development and as part of Local Government to be developed it must be able to take effective Administration of Land must of course, be based on relevant and verifiable Administration This work shall investigate what contribution Land Administration plays in the Local Government Areas.

1.3 AIM AND OBJECTIVES OF THE STUDY

The aim of this project is to evaluate the problems of land administration in karshi development area of Nasarawa state with the view to identifying their associated problems.

OBJECTIVES

To identify the procedures of land administration in Karshi development area.
To examine the existing policy and administrative machinery for land administration in Karshi Development Area.
To identify the associated problems of land administration in Karshi Development Area.
To proffer solutions to the identified problems.

1.4 RESEARCH QUESTIONS

what are the related and relevant literature on the subject matter
what are the existing policy and administration machinery for land administration in karshi development area
what are the associated problems of land administration in karshi development area.
What are the solution to the identified problems.

1.5 STATEMENT OF HYPOTHESIS

A hypothesis is usually stated in two forms.

Ho: Land Administration does not serve as relevant tool in societal growth and development

Hi: Land Administration serves as a relevant tool in societal growth and development.

1.6 SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY

The hallmark of an ordered society depends largely on the way right in land are held and controlled. And to ensure speed in physical economic and social political growth and development, the use of land must be properly administered. Karshi as a Development Area in Nasarawa State is witnessing a rapid development, the need for a study of this nature problems that will affect the smooth administration of land among the local authorities. Also students, individuals or group carrying on research of a similar nature may find the project useful in the future.

1.7 THE SCOPE AND LIMITATIONS OF THE STUDY

This study is concerned with the process of land administration in karshi development area of Nasarawa state as a local government council. It is believed that what affects local government land administration equally affects the land in various areas in the country.

This is because the law dealing with land administration in Nigeria has been streamlined since 1978 via decree No 6 of 1978.In collecting data for a work of this nature it is a known fact that difficulties will be encountered in the process of data collection, one of such problem associated with the work of this nature are documents and record keeping relating to land .Record concerning lands are classified document and therefore couldn’t be released to the public.

Secondly, the lack of finance which serves as constraint to the information and data that could be collected for the study. However, every effort was made to bring into focus all aspects that were considered relevant.

1.8 DEFINITION OF TERMS

LAND: Land is the part of the earth surface that is not covered by water, as opposed to the sea or the air.
PROBLEMS: These refer to difficulties an individual faces, come across or encounter while searching for land.
HYPOTHESIS: is the solution to a problem which is tested by statistical tools.
LAND ADMINISTRATION: is a system comprising of sub-system that actualizes strategies to implement land policy and other. Land Administration is the way in which the rules of land tenure are applied and made operational.

1.9 THE STUDY AREA

ORIGIN OF LAND ADMINISTRATION IN KARSHI DEVELOPMENT AREA

According to advanced dictionary administration means management of affairs or implementation of policies especially public affairs, Government policy, it could also be defined as process of arriving at decision operationally to other decision making process in large scale organization.

From the forging, it can be perceived that the term “administration” is synonymous to management. Management itself can be defined as the act of supervisory direction and control of affairs in order to achieve certain goal or set of goals.

Generally land administration refers to land management. This tends to defined various interest in land and its resources in order to achieved returns of maximize utility. Land administration further includes the formulation and implementation of policies with a view to regulating, controlling, allocation, development and use of land resources. Land administration may be seen as one of the means of achieving goals of the development of an area and as one of the factors that influences the implementation of planned development.

HISTORY OF LAND ADMINISTRATION IN NIGERIA

the land use act promulgated in 1978 vested the control of land in each state of the federation in the governor of the state. This is to make land readily available for both the government and potential land investors in the common interest of the public. The need for rapid development and industrialization in the post independent period necessitated the development of a system that would remove the burdensome processes involved in land acquisition and use by individuals and the different levels of government in Nigeria. It was noted that the practices of community land holding, family ownership of land, a trajectory of conflict and forms of traditional title to land made the use of land by governments for development purposes very difficult.

The problem arose from the long process of land acquisition involving the identification of the land for use, getting agreements from the owners, settlement of claims by different interest etc. at times after settlement, alleged marginalized parties take recourse to endless litigations against government and her development partners. Similarly, there were cases where the same land would be sold to different persons at the same time resulting into endless conflict and litigations.

The history of land administration in Karshi development area can be traced to the earliest when HASSAN AHAMMED ,the chief village head or family heads acting as the trustee and to grant permission with the consent of the principle members of land holding claim to those in need of land before vacant land could be for any purpose. due to the short coming of the trustee in allocating vacant land, which include covering the proceeds from occupational grants of communal land to their own the impracticability of identifying all the principal or important members of the land owing unit before land could be validly transferred, the lack of proper control over the trustee of communal land arose the need for a new and refined land Karshi development area.

In the year 1902 the public land proclamation came into effect and this was applicable only to the northern province. This was when Sir P. lugard was the governor of the area In 1916, the right of the governor to hold and administered land for the use and common benefits of the native classes of interest which Were recognize under the 1962 law the customary right of occupancy and the statutory right of occupancy

The duration of both the interest and right depend on the native law and customs. The minister has right to grand right or occupancy for public purpose upon payment of compensation for extraction of building materials.

AN EVALUATION OF THE PROBLEMS OF LAND ADMINISTRATION IN KARSHI DEVELOPMENT AREA OF NASARAWA STATE

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