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Nigeria: Land Swap Land Grab and Govt Failure (III)

March 20, 2013
Source
All Africa

Apart from the problem of skyrocketing cost of living in the city consequent upon land speculation and its attendant rising cost of rent, which the Land Swap is sure to escalate, there is the unjust treatment and the violation of fundamental human rights of the local indigenes.

The local indigenes must be compensated and resettled or integrated, depending on their choices, to places within the FCT or outside, in their original parent states. It is very necessary to factor the peoples' occupation for human sustainability. Thus, their entitlements should also include their agricultural lands when relocated, since farming is their major means of livelihood. If integrated the people must be carried along in securing a new source. As witnessed in the previous experience with the Garki village, integration has failed, basically for its inability to consider the peoples occupation. This is enough to inform the Administration to prepare for a comprehensive resettlement for the people with their houses and farmlands either within or outside the FCT, against the hurriedly packaged compensation to 'integrate' them in the plan. It did not surprise us a bit that the people are now earnestly agitating for their rights.

In a seven country study titled "Understanding Land Investment Deals in Africa", by the Oakland Institute, covering Ethiopia, Mali, Mozambique, Sierra Leone, Sudan, Tanzania, and Zambia, the various consequences reveals that Displaced farmers are forced to find farmland elsewhere, with increasing competition and tension with other farmers over access to land and resources. There is nothing in place to ensure that local people benefit from the business opportunities that these investments could present. Local people bear the brunt of the adverse impacts of these investments, while realizing none of the benefits. In many cases, local indigenous people already live on the margins and face chronic food insecurity. They view land investment as the latest in a long process of discrimination.

What is going to be the status of the present land charges regime when allocation is made to the developer and the remaining 40% plots beneficiaries in the district? High land demand in the face of limited provision compounded by dwindling resources ensured that not even the low, but also the middle income groups were marginalized to the dormitory towns within commuting distance akin to the British compromised model after P. Mann. In many instances the cost of the land acquisition far outweighs that of developing the structure from the commencement to finishing. With the many unoccupied expensive houses spread around all the major districts in the city, it is clearly known that the problem of housing in Abuja is more of affordability than availability. While envisaging the possibility of encountering the prevailing situation, the Abuja master plan extensively discussed the issue of affordable housing program. As observed, housing programs failed because they are not tailored to a target population's income level, such as the households' ability to pay. Addressing the major components of housing affordability should thus be the focus. These are accessibility to land, infrastructure, housing finance, building materials and labour. Best practice is for the government to ensure free access to land or liberalize the process of its acquisition, and provide infrastructure such that the cost of the final product shall be greatly reduced. Benefits must never be in terms of plots, but the final product which are the housing units.

In a literature titled"Unlocking Land Value to finance Urban Infrastructure" the risk involved in the FCT type model are clearly stated and are very much prevalent in Abuja. As observed by Katherine Sierra, the very magnitude of revenue involved opens the way to potential favoritism, corruption, and abuses of government power. More so, thatnot only for Abuja, land sales are devoid of transparency and accountability. We are aware of what goes around. With the current scrambling for land, in which the so-called trustees lack restrains, we would not be surprised that the 40% due to the government would not have already been allocated for speculation, even before the commencement of the project. The solution to the prevailing housing crises should be in social housing not land sale.

Wherever our handlers got their model of Land Swap, it is different from the normal swapping of land with another land in order to achieve different targeted goals of the interested parties. Referring to this model as land swap is a misnomer. Mostly in a democratic society, not the type practiced in our country, the trade off with public land is subject to legislation where the contending parties present their cases for argument before approval and implementation. Among others, the Abuja indigenes would have had their views heard. Some of these cases are the Haro Woods and Denver City Council Land Swaps. If it is really intended to make houses relatively affordable, or reduce the prevailing grave housing deficit, or mitigate land speculation as the document portrays then it should better consider the South African social housing model instead of any with potential grave social implications. As could be seen we are already in the most precarious situation.