Institutional corruption in Nigeria was not simply seen in 2016 as being of a fantastic nature by a British Prime Minister, David Cameron, but also promoted incurably to the delight of notable Nigerian leaders. Corruption, which, as noted by Professor J.S Cookey, began in 1967 (vide his 1987 Political Bureau’s Report), is condoned as normal. It is no more taken as a big deal. This is why land grabbers can easily afford the luxury of forcefully acquiring a land legitimately belonging to The Nation newspaper and still be threatening to kill whoever dares to come and challenge them.
It is quite interesting to note that The Nation newspaper has drawn the attention of the Inspector General of Police by way of petition to the matter. What appears to be more interesting is the attitude of the Federal Government towards the issue of land and housing. Government has been very fraudulent about land and housing allocation in Nigeria. This is very true at both the federal and state levels. If the The Nation newspaper is embittered about its land being encroached, what does the Management of The Nation newspaper say about the Federal Government collecting money from thousands of Nigerians for houses that were meant to be constructed in many parts of Nigeria, including Lagos State? The project was duly advertised, deposits were collected in early 1994, and the houses were scheduled to be allocated in December 1994. I am one of the applicants who made deposits. As of today, no house has been built, not to mention allocation. No refund has been made and no one is talking about it.
Consequently, The Nation newspaper petition raises more fundamental questions about the very criminally disposition of the Government of Nigeria that has the responsibility to secure life and property. People often try to get justice through engagements in acts of corruption. People lobby unnecessarily for their legitimate rights and when they refuse to board the corruption train, their legitimate rights are trampled upon. This is why it has become a desideratum to go beyond The Nation newspaper’s land grabbing petition.
Law and Governmental Crimes
Land ownership and administration in the post-independence era in Nigeria is governed by the Land Use Act of 1978. Before then, there had been different legislations from which the 1978 Land Use Act has borrowed in one way or the other. There were the Land and Native Rights Act (1916), Niger Lands Transfer Act (1916), Public Lands Acquisition Act (1917), Native Lands Acquisition Act (1917), State Lands Act (1918), Town and Country Planning Act (1947), etc. In essence, these legislations are about how land is divided and allocated, how it is used and how it should be used, how a legitimate allocatee or owner may not be deprived of it, as well as how the owners are made to pay rents to the government.
For example, Article 21 of the 1978 Land Use Act stipulates that it is illegal for any customary right of occupancy or any part of it to be alienated by assignment. Article 22(1) provides that ‘it shall not be lawful for the holder of a statutory right of occupancy granted by the Governor to alienate his right of occupancy or any part thereof by assignment, mortgage, transfer of possession, sublease or otherwise…’. It is against this background of the 1978 Land Use Act that the petition of the The Nation newspaper to the Inspector General of Police should be explicated and understood.
The 1978 Land Use Act vests all land in any State in the legitimate governor of each State. The Governor holds the land in trust for the people and only grants individuals or corporations the rights of occupancy. The rights of occupancy does not confer the right of full ownership. Regardless of the manner of acquiring a land – act of donation, deed of legal mortgage, traditional proof, survey plan, etc. – the moment a land is lawfully acquired, trespasses must not be condoned. This is where the role and responsibility of Government is relevant. To what extent has Government been very protective of legitimate owners of land? Is land in Abuja or in the whole of the Federal Capital Territory allocated on objectivity of purpose and fairness? Is it not done more on the basis of favouritism and patronage?
Our observation is that Government has been generally most unfair to very honest and patriotic Nigerians in the matter of land and housing allocation. Government takes deposits from Nigerians for houses that will not be built and allocated and yet Government will be allocating houses to sportsmen for winning games, purportedly for doing Nigeria a great honour. As good as this claim of honour may be, advertising a housing project, collecting monies from the public, keeping silent over the deposit and not building any house for allocation, and perhaps most disturbingly, not talking about refunding the deposits made by the public with interest is fraudulent and most criminally. Most unfortunately, it taints Nigeria’s international image.
The Federal Government put in place a National Housing Programme for the purposes of housing development in the country. It was meant to address housing deficits, to ensure adequacy of houses, and to make houses affordable through ownership and rental schemes for all Nigerians without discrimination. The National Housing Programme currently has housing schemes in 34 out of the 36 States in Nigeria. More interestingly and of course very commendably, the Nigerian Diaspora Commission under Honourable Abike Dabiri-Erewa, regularly provides information for the attention of Nigerians in the Diaspora on housing units available to all Nigerians in each State. Information is given on the selling prices of the various units and on the criteria for the sale of completed houses (vide nidcom.gov.ng). However, there is no information from the Federal Government on its advertised housing schemes under the outstanding 1994 National Housing Programme.
On April 01, 2025 the Federal Government reportedly revoked the Provisional Offer of Allocation of Houses under the National Housing Programme under the pretext that the recipients have failed to fulfil the outright payment within the stipulated time frame. This might be true. However, if we reckon with how public servants behave, it cannot but be rightly speculated that the recipients have not been duly and directly informed. When people make payments to Government, it is always directly done and directly receipted for. But there ends the communication. One needs to lobby for whatever is needed. And then the Government will come out in a manu militari fashion to announce sanctions for its own administrative deficiencies and bad governance. If Government sanctions payment defaulters, who sanctions the Government for its administrative remissness and wickedness if not crimes?
In 1994, Alhaji Lateef Kayode Jakande was the Minister of Works and Housing. His Ministry placed a public advert in many dailies calling on Nigerians who were interested in becoming landlords and who do not want to remain tenants to apply for houses. There were different types of housing units. I and my wife applied as a couple. We took a bank loan from the Universal Trust Bank headquarters then located in Obalende, Lagos Island.
The total cost of a medium detached housing unit in the FESTAC area for which we applied was only N200,000. A deposit of N40,000 deposit was required. When Alhaji Jakande was replaced, his successor, Major General Abdulkareem Adisa, said it was not possible to have houses built on the basis of the prices given by Lateef Jakande. He inflated the price to N800,000, and requiring a 25% deposit. This meant that the initial total cost of N200,000 reuired to buy the house became the new deposit required. We then looked for additional N60,000 to add. We already gave a detailed analysis of the challenges we had in this column (vide www.thisladylive.com>2021/02/14). Up till the time of writing this column today, no one has bothered to look at our complaint. We are not the only persons quietly and bitterly complaining. In fact, when the column was published in 2021, several people called to thank me for being their spokesperson. Since then, it has been of governance of silence and condoning of governmental illegal excesses which have not helped nation-building. This is why we have a Nigeria without Nigerians or having Nigerians without Nigeria. No Nigerian nation can ever be built without the people. True, a state can only exist under international law if there is a union of territory, population and government. Additionally, the State can exist, but it cannot, without recognition, enter into international relations. Consequently, Nigeria, as a sovereign state, cannot afford the luxury of behaving without considering the international implications.
I have similarly drawn attention to the Isheri North Housing Estate project in Lagos State. The project started under Military Governor Buba Marwa in 1996. I brought many colleagues in ThisDay newspapers, then in Ikeja, to apply for land allocation. The Governor graciously allocated land to us. A plot measured 800meters square. When Senator Bola Ahmed Tinubu succeeded him, he reduced the size to 700 meters square and we had already made full payments for a plot of 800 meters. The reduction was a serious breach of contract. Governor Tinubu increased the prices for all those that had not made full payment of N500,000 to N1m
Unlike the Federal Government, land was allocated on paper and given to depositors. For reported reasons of flood, effective occupation of allocated land has been impossible. We have no plot for which we have paid. There is no culture of communication with depositors. Everyone is kept in the dark. What prevents writing to depositors about current developments? When honest patriots cannot fulfil his or her obligations to the nation, why should anyone not expect law breakers to reign? Why would land grabbers reign freely everywhere?
Crimes and Foreign Implications
A crime is generally believed to be an ‘intentional commission of an act usually deemed socially harmful or dangerous and specifically defined, prohibited, and punishable under criminal law,’ borrowing the words from www.britannica.com. There are some conducts that are lawful in some countries while the same conducts are considered criminally in some other jurisdictions. In other words, there may be activity or behaviour considered as a trivial issue in one country, but which amounts to a serious crime elsewhere. In this context of land grabbing and payments for houses that are meant to be allocated but have not, what should we call the behaviour of the 1994 Government that intentionally took financial deposits from the public for houses meant to be built more than thirty years ago and both the succeeding Governments and the people of Nigeria that are governed have kept quiet about it?
When an ordinary man commits an offence against the State, it is described as a crime, what should we call the failure of duty and irresponsibility of Government? Does the Government not commit an offence, a very serious one for that matter, if it collects money from a citizen but refuses to comply with the spirit and the contractual obligations inherent in the deal of purchasing and selling of houses that would not be built? Shouldn’t this type of offence not fall under crimes against humanity and violations of human rights?
In my eyes, being an honest person is being treated as a crime in Nigeria because honesty of purpose has become meaningless. It seems patriotism is no longer wanted. In fact, honesty is being rewarded with mockery. Honesty of purpose and dint of hard work is not wanted which should not be the case in a descent society. When a society is seen as fantastically corrupt, where anything can be made possible illegally, where politics is the lord of lords, where people are told to ensure election victory and leave the rest to the court to judge, etc., there is no way an enduring nation-state can be built from that type of society. As such, the implications of Nigeria’s international image cannot but be very tasking for Nigeria’s diplomatic mission to handle.
First, apart from the Mission Charter given to every Nigerian diplomatic mission to comply with, it cannot but be very difficult for Nigeria’s diplomatic agents to argue against a truism. Diplomatic missions in Nigeria observe developments in Nigeria through open sources of information and do report directly to their home governments. Nigerian missions abroad do the same to the home government in Nigeria. Consequently, life should not be made difficult for Nigeria’s diplomats. It is easier to project Nigeria and Nigerians when the truth so permits. In fact, it is on the basis of the goodness of Nigeria and her people that a case of clemency and friendliness of the Nigerian environment for foreign direct investments can be made.
And true enough, there is no disputing the fact that there are many bureaucratic impediments to accessing land in Nigeria, not only by Nigerians, but particularly by foreign investors. It therefore makes little sense preaching the sermon for foreign investments when the climate of investment is inclement. For The Nation newspaper to have acquired land in the FCT is a pointer to future investment. There should not be any good basis therefore for any so-called land grabbers in Abuja to harass the staff of the newspaper, and evening threatening to kill them. Many cases of land grabbing abound in major capital cities of Nigeria, but there is nothing to suggest that Government has put measures of deterrence in place. Abuja is a place for all Nigerians and the rule of law should prevail. It is when the rule of law is seen to be in place, when it is respected and allowed to sanction whoever disobeys it that Nigeria’s international image can speak well for itself.
In this regard, there have been many criticisms of the 1978 Land Use Act, especially from the perspectives of different implementation processes, complex bureaucracy, insecurity of land rights, political interferences, inadequate infrastructure, etc. Emmanuella Uzoamaka Otty et al, have identified two critical obstacles to the attainment of the objective s of the 1978 Land Use Act which were to make land available to people for survival, and for needed development. The first obstacle is ‘the inherent contradictions and defects in the law, and the second is institutional weakness and lack of political will to implement the Act fairly and equitably.’ However, the Act is still in force and the governors still hold the land in their state in trust for their people. This means it has to continue to be condoned in spite of the inclemency of the environment.
In other words, how do we explain the fact that some multinational corporations are checking out of the country and Government is at the same time informing the Nigerian public that new investors are committing themselves to a new Nigeria in the making? Several reasons were given by the Live on Bloomberg TV on March 1st, 2024 at 12.42 pm GMT+0100 as to why multinational businesses were leaving Nigeria. For example the GSK, Bayer and Sanofi announced their decision to leave Nigeria. In 2022. Unilever cut down on its manufactures. The Situation of investments was to the extent that ‘FDI inflows turned negative. $187 million worth of foreign investment left the country.’ Tribuneonlineeng.com similarly reported on 10 November 2024 about the checking out of GlaxoSmithKline, Procter & Gamble, Diageo, Sanofi, Equinor, Mabisco, and Kimberly-Clark.
More interestingly, thisdaylive.com, on 9 July 2024, made the need to stem the exit of multinational corporations from Nigeria very clear. It said that the multinational corporations ‘claim that doing business in Nigeria is almost impossible.’ And perhaps most interestingly, thisdaylive.com of 19 June, 2024 had earlier made the understanding of the exit clearer by saying that it was the Western multinationals that were fleeing Nigeria while they were being replaced by Asian, Turkish firms. In this regard, the multinationals checking out have had experiences that the new comers are yet to acquire. When will the new comers not end up similarly exiting Nigeria when they too discover that the environmental conditionings of business are hostile?
This question brings us back to the petition of The Nation newspaper signed by its Editor-in-Chief, a veteran journalist per excellence, and a former stalwart of ThisDay newspaper family, Victor Ifijeh. How can the Ministry of Foreign Affairs defend the payment for a house or land allocation more than thirty years ago and the house or the land is yet to be allocated and there is no official explanation to that effect? The business of diplomacy goes beyond wining and dining. The beauty of diplomacy is in the art of making people accept political remissness as a necessity but which does not remove of the taint on integrity of Government. Public Relations Officers should be more proactive in political governance. If principal officers do not have time to listen to news and newspaper commentaries, it should not be so difficult to have daily summaries of publicly-raised questions for the kind attention of their principal officers.
Can the Government rightly claim not to know that land grabbing is in existence in several parts of Nigeria or that even government land is being regularly encroached upon? Why is it that there are only reactive, and no proactive preventive, policies to serve as deterrence? Whatever is the case, the way media houses are being treated in Nigeria is not at all befitting. The 1999 Constitution requires the media to monitor political governance and to hold government accountable. The Constitution makes the media houses and professionals the eyes and mouths of the people. Even though there is no profession that is not important, the particular recognition of the media by the Constitution and the mere fact that the Constitution gives the media special obligation to fulfil, makes the media profession more important in political governance. This is also because the extent to which any profession is considered important is particularly enhanced by the media professionals who made the importance understandable to the laymen.
Finally, on a more serious note, if the 1994 Nigerian Super Eagles won the African Cup of Nations and the victory was taken as a big deal, to the extent that they were promised houses in 1994, and if the houses were allocated in 2022, though lately, why is the 1994 government-advertised National Housing Project not also taken as a big deal? Is it not a contract between the depositors and the collector of the deposits? What is the place of sanctity of agreement in this case? Without whiff of doubt, Government is the most criminally in Nigeria. Political governance in Nigeria makes democratic life very difficult and this largely explains why unconstitutional changes of government are uncontrollable in Africa. Government collected my money in 1994. In 2025, there is no allocation of house and no refund of my deposit. There is no information on what is happening. The Government of Lagos State is silent on the Isheri North land project. Why should Nigerians be compelled to bribe their way before they can get their legitimate rights? Politicians and public servants should be prevented from further promoting political governance as an agent of hatred for Nigeria. What Nigeria needs is patriotism, because no amount of evangelical epistles can rebuild Nigeria without patriotism and firstly removing unfairness. Justice and fairness has become a desideratum. The land belonging to The Nation newspaper should be promptly looked into without having to lobby or engage in sharp practices.
