land acquisition and land transfer in zaria villages in nigeria

Agricultural Administration 15 (1984) 87-100

Land Acquisition and Land Transfer in Zaria Villages in Nigeria

L. Alegwu Ega

Department of Agricultural Economics and Rural Sociology, Institute for Agricultural Research, Ahmadu Bello University,

PMB 1044, Samaru, Zaria, Nigeria

(Received: 16 March, 1983)

SUMMARY

This paper reports on some aspects of an investigation into the current land tenure practices in the Zaria area in Northern Nigeria. It describes the methods of land acquisition and transfer and throws light on the complex interaction between communal rights and exclusive individual ownership.

Despite a long history of commercial exchange in land,‘~” it has become obviousfrom the investigation that a strikingfeature of the land tenure pattern is the limited extent of change; that is, the predominance of the traditional methods of land acquisition and transfer (inheritance and gift) over land that is purchased, rented or pledged. To understand this seeming resilience of the traditional land tenure practices, or the lack of drastic alteration towards individualisation, the paper goes beyond the observed landcustoms to critically examinefactors such as the overall strategy of agricultural development and the objective production circumstances of the farmer.

INTRODUCTION

In Nigeria, the traditional basis of land tenure was communal. Land was held collectively in family, kinship, clan or village units and allocated without right of disposition to households.g,‘O Local customs generally recognised the right of the community or the village to control the use of

87 Agricultural Administration 0309-586X/84/$03.00 0 Elsevier Applied Science Publishers Ltd, England, 1984. Printed in Great Britain

88 L. Alegwu Ega

land resources within its boundary and to select and use a portion of the land for family or personal use.

Specific regard is often given in the literature to the portion of the local law and custom which emphasises collective interests in land and restrains the right of disposition of the individual. From this developed a model of the land tenure system thought to be pervasive in Nigeria and elsewhere in Africa and whose components include: collective ownership of the land; reciprocal controls, rights and duties between land trustees and members of the community; egalitarian access to land and inalienability of land and the consequent lack of land markets.1,2,‘4 This tenure type is variously termed traditional, customary, communal or corporate, although such systems rarely exist in the idealised form described by theorists.

There are two main arguments among development planners and policy makers about the potential of customary tenure for promoting agricultural development. One view argues that land reform policy is not needed under customary tenure.’ i - i 3 It is opined that customary tenure will change when new market or investment opportunities arise. It is noted, for example, that the introduction of cash crops or the commercialisation of agriculture has led to changes in land use pattern and has encouraged individualisation of land rights. Thus, it is felt that the evolution of the customary tenure should be left to the automatic pressures of economic factors, In this way, land would tend to pass to the hands of the most enterprising members of the community.

Others argue that development-oriented policies must include the individualisation of land rights because the customary tenure system is not flexible enough to accommodate changes resulting from increased population growth and large-scale production.6,‘4,‘5 The underlying assumption here appears to be that when land is not treated as a market- able economic commodity, it is less efficiently used. In actual fact, a growing number of studies suggest that customary tenure has more flexibility than is generally th0ught.i’ Even in the former Northern States, where legislation was enacted to promote customary tenure or local collective ownership of land, practices are in the direction of freehold title, thus lending support to the argument that reform is not needed, that customary tenure will change when new market or production opportunities arise.

My preliminary analysis of the land tenure system in three Zaria villages confirms that customary tenure is highly variable and alters

Land acquisition and land transfer in Zaria villages in Nigeria 89

constantly in response to socio-economic changes.’ It shows a clear trend towards individualisation of land rights, if not outright conversion to the Western notion of freehold. Broadly speaking, while the two schools of thought emphasise the need to modify customary tenure into an individualised type, which is considered to be more conducive to economic growth, on examining the dynamic aspects of land tenure, especially the uncontrolled changes in the direction of private tenure, the study concluded that this would create insecurity for the majority of farmers. By implication, customary tenure is too flexible and needs a strong land policy to safeguard the economic opportunities of the rural poor.3-5

The present study complements this previous effort and refutes the myopic focus of the existing studies of land law, tenure and custom on the nature of rights without serious attention to the dynamics of the land tenure system. It carefully examines the nature of the changes in the land tenure system in the Zaria area and draws attention to the significance of the overall strategy of agricultural development for land tenure system and production relationships.

The presentation of the empirical data about landholding will be preceded by a brief description of the methodology of the study. The discussion will centre on the nature of access to land, the changes observed and the dualistic features of the land tenure system (the co- existence of communal rights with individual ownership rights).

METHODOLOGY

The field study on which this paper is based was undertaken between August, 1978 and June, 1979 in what were the Zaria and Ikara Local Government areas, which were traditionally part of the Zaria Emirate political and administrative unit. The study covered four villages: Madara, Dakace, Kankanki and Mayere. These villages consist of central units and a number of hamlets (anguwoyi, sing. anguwa) or settlement units of several compounds built close together and surrounded (some are interlaced) with farms.

In selecting the villages, care was taken to ensure that they were accessible, but generally there was nothing particularly different about these villages as compared with other villages in the area. A brief description of the villages follows.

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Madara (about 578 farm families) is a fairly remote village comprising central Madara and seven widely scattered hamlets. It is connected to Giwa village, the district headquarters and the nearest marketing centre, by about 7 km of poor, rugged road (off the Zaria to Sokoto tarmac road) which is motorable only during the dry season.

Dakace (about 460 farm families) is within the urban fringe of Zaria township. It is about 3 km from Zaria and encompasses Dakace proper and three hamlets.

Kankanki (about 356 farm families) comprises the central village and four hamlets. Previously, this village was remote and difficult to reach but a new road under construction has made it more easily accessible.

Mayere (about 954 farm families) is composed of seven units and is connected to the Zaria to Kano tarmac road by 6 km of rough road.

The data presented here were collected at two levels. First, a total sample of 193 farmers were randomly selected and interviewed by a selected team of four research assistants using a pre-tested questionnaire. The questionnaire dealt with the personal characteristics of the respondents, methods of land acquisition and transfer, etc. Secondly, unstructured interviewing of some key informants such as public officials as village and district heads, area court judges having jurisdiction over the respective villages, and other public officials connected with land- and agriculture-related institutions, provided a more knowledgeable basis for developing the questionnaire. Furthermore, this provided useful information on possible determinants of attitudes in the different communities, thus permitting a contextual analysis of the survey data.

Basically, the ethnographic method has not been used simply as a preliminary to the surveys and the survey is not considered an all-purpose method. The two methods are seen as complementing each other and have been integrated at various points in the research process. An attempt has been made to combine the economy of intensive interviewing of informants and observation with the economies of efficient data collec- tion made possible by the use of surveys.20 Ethnographic information was verified with survey data and, similarly, the ethnographic method was relied on to discover and analyse the behavioural and social processes underlying the attitudes, perceptions and behaviour patterns measured by means of the survey. This was particularly necessary because there is some difficulty in trusting the answer one gets from a direct survey on such sensitive questions as how much land the respondents farmed, how much income they obtained from farming, etc., and generally in bringing the

Land acquisition and land transfer in Zaria GIlages in Nigeria 91

survey method to bear on some of the problems investigated. However, interviewing and observation were considered time-consuming, expensive and incomplete, although they might have provided more dependable data. These problems were partially solved by the integration of the two research methods.

Furthermore, the problems were tackled by building checks for reliability into the questionnaire, by providing many checks for response error such as asking several questions with respect to each key variable studied. As Pauli notes: ‘Rarely can a person be deceitful and yet maintain internal consistency over a long series of interviews.’

LAND ACQUISITION AND TRANSFER IN FOUR ZARIA VILLAGES: MADARA, DAKACE, KANKANKI AND MAYERE

To provide insight into what rights households and individuals have to land and how rights of use, allocation and disposal are distributed in the villages, the farmers in the sample were asked to give information on how

TABLE 1 Land Tenure Pattern of Fields Held by a Sample of Farm Families in the Four Villages

Inheritance Gijt Purchase LOan

Incidence Number of fields Number of hectares Percentage of:

Total number of incidences Total number of fields Total number of hectares

145 42 32 11 614 134 75 20 359.50 66.9 45.0 8.7

56.4 16.3 12.4 4.3

69.5 15.2 8.5 2.3

71.6 13.3 9.0 1.7

Rent Pledge Allocation/ Total appropriation of communal rights

11 4 12 257 15 7 18 883 9.1 4.3 8.5 502.2

4.3 1.6 4.1 100

1.7 0.8 2.0 100

1.8 0.9 1.7 100

they acquired the farms over which they held cultivation rights at the time of the surveys. Their responses are as presented in Table 1. This shows that a farmer may hold several units of farms (fields) under different types of tenure. Basically, land can be acquired or transferred through inheritance, gift, purchase, loan, rent, pledge and allocation.

92 L. Alegwu Ega

Inheritance

Inheritance is unquestionably the most important way of acquiring land in the area. For all the villages combined, it accounts for about 70 per cent of both the total number of fields and hectares held by the farmers (see Table 1). When the villages are considered separately, inheritance easily remains the most important way of obtaining land in each of the villages. Even in Dakace, where it seems to be of comparatively lower importance, it still accounts for over 50 per cent of both the total number of fields and hectares held by the sample of farmers.

Inheritance generally follows the Malikicode, an interpretative version of the Islamic law. In most instances, inheritance involves the partitioning of holdings. The children of the deceased could either share the land by themselves or have an alkali (Islamic judge) do it for them when a dispute is involved.’ 7

Subdivision of holdings occurred in about 70 per cent of the reported incidences of inheritance, with between two and five people, or an average

TABLE 2 Subdivision of Holdings in Cases of Inheritance

Villages Incidence of inheritance

Number of’people sharing the land

I 2-3 4-5

Madara 38 10 20 8 Dakace 29 7 5 17 Kankanki 33 3 17 13 Mayere 45 16 9 20

Total 145 36 51 58

of three people, sharing in each case (see Table 2). Discussion with the farmers and records in Makarfi Area Court show that, even where the deceased had many fields, a single field may be subdivided because there is insufficient to go around or because of differentials in the quality of the land. The land is of two general types-the upland type (gonar dajir) and the lowland type (Fadama). While the gonar dajir supports only rain-fed agriculture under the present cultivation system, Fadama holds enough moisture, or can be easily irrigated, for year-round cultivation.


The title acquired under inheritance is permanent and heritable. The holder of such title exercises full management rights over his holdings, including power of disposal, in spite of government restrictions on sale.

Gift

Gift was the next most important way in which the farmers in the sample had acquired their holdings. This was true in terms of frequency of occurrence, as well as the number of fields and hectares held by the farmers. For the sample villages combined, it accounted for about 15 per cent of the number of fields and 13 per cent of the number of hectares. Gifts of land were less frequent in Mayere, the largest village, where the average number of both fields and hectares was the lowest (see Table 3) and where other methods of land acquisition are becoming important.

Gifts of land usually occurred as a form of allocation of a portion of family holdings to younger members of a family. This may be with the aim of starting them out on independent farming or in anticipation of inheritance. A majority of the farmers (28 out of 42) who said they had obtained land as a gift reported acquiring it from their fathers. Five said they had obtained land from uncles, and nine reported receiving land from friends. The title acquired by gift has the same attributes as that acquired by inheritance. It is permanent and heritable, and those who acquired land through this means see no restriction as to their use of the land.

TABLE 3 Average Number and Size of Fields per Holding in the Survey Villages

Madara Dakace Kankanki Mayere

Average number of fields Gonar dajir 4.5 Fadama 0.9 Total 5.4

Average size of fields (hectares) Gonar dajir 0.56 Fadama 0.24 Total 0.48

Average size of holding 2.7

3.3 1.0 4.3

0.73 0.32 0.65 2.7

3.6 3.0 3.6 1.7 0.6 1.0 5.3 3.6 4.6

0.81 0.56 0.65 0.28 0.44 0.32 0.65 0.56 0.56 3.4 2.0 2.7

Total sample

94 L. Alegwu Ega

Purchase

Purchase was the third most important means of acquiring land in each of the survey villages. It accounts for about 9 per cent of the total number of holdings and also of the total hectarage of the entire sample. It is of relatively greater importance in Dakace, where it accounts for 15 per cent of the total number of holdings and 19 per cent of the total number of hectares in the sample.

On the whole, there seems to be much greater pressure for change in the direction of commercial transactions, such as purchase, rent and pledge, in Dakace, which is closest to urban Zaria, and in Mayere, where, as reflected by the average size of holding, population pressure on land is greatest. Conversely, commercial transactions occurred least in Madara and Kankanki, the more rural villages. In Dakace, there is already competition for land for both agricultural and urban use.

Indeed, there is no doubt that increasing population pressure on land and greater exposure of the rural communities to urban capital would pave the way for greater commercialisation of interests in land. There was a free market for land, in violation of the 1962 Land Law. For instance, although the law required that the permission of the village head be sought before commercial transactions in land took place, this was rarely observed. For example, the village head was consulted in only fourteen of the forty-seven cases of purchases, rent and pledge reported by the farmers.

Moreover, discussions with farmers showed that when the village head was informed, it was in terms of using him as a witness rather than seeking his permission. And, although the law required that he be consulted, it did not specify the conditions under which land can or cannot be sold, or whether the village head can deny the farmers the right to sell their land under certain circumstances. At any rate, farmers who hold permanent rights over their holdings think they have discretionary power of disposal over them.

Investigation reveals that farmers are generally reluctant to sell their land-that land is apparently the last asset of which they would want to dispose. Nevertheless, they are often compelled by economic need to sell or pledge their land. In effect, purchase may well be an indicator of indigency in the rural sector.

Land obtained by purchase has all the attributes of inherited or gifted land, except that disputes often occur over land claimed to have been purchased.


Loan (aro)/rent (haya)

Loan (are) refers to land held for temporary use, involving no payment or only token payment (galla). Loan between relatives may be free, but usually loan involves gullu which is customarily a bundle of guinea-corn or a portion of the crop cultivated on the land. Gullu may be regarded as a rent in kind, but the amount involved is unfixed and unrelated to the quality and size of the land. In the traditional Habe-Fulani political organisation, it was paid by slaves to validate the owner’s title to the land and reinforce their allegiance to him.

On the other hand, rent (huyu) occurs when land is acquired on negotiated terms involving agreement as to the amount of money to be paid and duration of use. It is thus distinguished from loan by its cash requirement and the more formal agreement involved. It seems to have evolved from the practice of gullu in the wake of increasing value of land.

It is perhaps noteworthy that although the incidence of loans was highest in Madara, which is about the least closely tied village to an urban market, no evidence of rent was found there. On the other hand, Dakace, which is most closely tied to an urban market, and Mayere, which is seemingly affected by population pressure, reported significantly more incidence of rent than loan. Furthermore, no incidence of loan or rent was found in Kankanki, the smallest village, where the average landholding is largest.

When land is acquired by loan or rent, the farmer’s control is limited and includes only the right to make physical use of the land and the income from it. The holder certainly does not have permanent title to it or power of alienation in any way. Usually, he does not even have the right of growing tree crops on the land.

Pledge (jinginu)

Pledge (jinginu) implies that the landholder has acquired the right of use by giving a money loan. He would thus reserve the right of use of the land until the loan it guarantees is repaid. He never becomes the owner of the land unless the agreement entitles him to assume ownership title after a stipulated time, or if the owner decides to regard the transaction as a sale.

Allocation/appropriation of communal rights

Allocation refers to land allocated by the village head to newcomers to

96 L. Alegwu Ega

the village and others on the basis of need. This occurs when unoccupied land is available. Normally, if an individual identifies any land over which no prior claim has been established or which has been vacated, he is granted the right to use it by the village head and he automatically becomes its primary occupier or customary owner. His right is permanent and heritable. Generally, allocation is indicative of a lack of pressure on land, and its rare incidence suggests a decline as not much unclaimed land is left to allocate. The reported cases occurred over 20 years ago.

In the last analysis, it should be noted that only a few of the respondents reported that they had given part of their holdings to other farmers by selling, pledging and renting them out or by giving them out on loan or as gifts. Those who sold or pledged land said they did so to solve financial problems which involved raising small amounts of money, such as bride money or tax money or even money to meet subsistence needs. There was no evidence that land was sold or pledged for agricultural purposes.

The pledging of land is usually undertaken by those who are not credit- worthy and thus cannot raise loans on ordinary terms. As previously mentioned, pledging sometimes leads to outright sale. This occurs as additional financial needs force the pledger to take more money from the borrower and thereby totally part with the land, or as his inability to redeem the loan gives the borrower the opportunity to compel him to finally sell the land.

Those who rented or loaned out land claimed they had more than enough land and/or that they wanted to help the tenant. Similarly, those who gave out land as gifts generally explained that they wanted to help the beneficiary. However, the majority of the gift exchanges (29 out of 45) occurred between members of the same family, usually as a form of allotment to adult males in the family.

CONCLUSIONS

Two major points should be obvious from the foregoing. First, although, traditionally, farmers have acquired rights to land by being the first to clear it or through inheritance, gift and loan, land has now become a transferrable economic commodity. Purchase, rent and pledge have become institutionalised in the villages. Farms are often sold or pledged to solve some financial problem, but grants of land by loan and gift are


usually given to relatives and friends to help them out or help them start farming on their own. The person making the grant may have an abundance of land or at least feel an obligation to the other person.

The existence of commercial transactions in land shows that individuals exercise ownership rights over their land. Clearly, there is no communal control over the alienation of holdings to which individuals have permanent title. This raises questions about the effectiveness of the 1962 Land Law and the validity of the commonly held view that, under customary tenure, right of alienation resides in the community. As no effort was made to enforce the law, rudimentary land customs in operation when land was abundant in relation to demand seem to have given way to new land customs. Thus, individualisation has become an acceptable principle of ‘customary tenure’ in spite of restraining legislation.

Although access to land is predominantly gained through inheritance and gift-the more traditional forms of tenure-it is apparent that there is much pressure for change towards more commercialisation of interests in land in Dakace, which is located within the Zaria urban fringe, and in Mayere, where there seems to be greater population pressure on land. Thus, the trend towards individualised tenure is reinforced or com- plicated by a rapid increase in rural population and a concomitant growing land pressure, more so as off-farm employment opportunities for the rural population are scarce. Moreover, technical deficiencies limit the capability of farmers to expand in spite of the existence of such opportunities.

A conspicuous aspect of the farming system is the relative under- development of the productive forces. The average farm family consists of nearly six persons and cultivates about 2.7 ha of land. The higher proportion of the farmers (over 70 per cent) are in the younger age groups but virtually none has any formal education or any social or economic power that would enable him to reap substantial benefits from the existing agricultural development strategy. There is minimal use of capital and technology by the local farmers, and labour is a constraint in the context of the existing technology. All the farmers in the sample use mainly traditional hand tools such as hoes and matchets.

Estimates of unused arable land for the area suggest great potential for expansion (only about 63 per cent of the estimated arable land is under cultivation). However, the unused arable land is of low marginal quality and may demand much effort, capital and technical know-how. There is,

98 L. Alegwu Ega

consequently, an increasing pressure on the already cropped area and areas that could be profitably cultivated with minimal effort.

Thus, although most of the respondents consider their farms inadequate, they do not identify their capability to expand with unused arable land. Generally, they consider whatever unoccupied land exists now to be uncultivable and think the easiest way is to acquire land from other farmers. This is because the use of the available arable land would require capital and technology of a magnitude not readily available to the local farmers. Thus, while it may be argued that, with improved technology and more funds, the farmers can expand their holdings, it does not seem that they have much opportunity to do so under the present production system. Meanwhile, it would appear that increasing pressure on land would enhance the importance of exchange of land and reduce the importance of communal rights. This explains why purchase was more consistently cited by the farmers as the easiest way to acquire land. But while most farmers in Dakace and Mayere consider purchase the easiest way to acquire land, loan was more frequently cited in Madara and Kankanki. On the whole, the pattern of response suggests that pressure on land would not only enhance the importance of exchange but would pave the way for greater commercialisation of interest in land where such pressure is greatest.

As land is often the last asset with which a farmer would want to part, the responses also indicate that land may be more difficult to obtain by farmers where pressure on land is greatest. Thus, even though farmers may consider purchase as the best option, it may be difficult to find a seller. Indeed, while most of the farmers thought they could expand their landholding by buying more land, none anticipated selling their land in the near future.

Nevertheless, the transformation of land into a commodity for sale could lead to increasing loss of land rights by peasants and eventually turn them into tenants or agrarian wage labourers. Even though land distribution is relatively equal in the villages, there is some evidence of socio-economic inequality, land speculation and land grabbing by urban- based investors.

Secondly, given a fixed family land in conditions of rapid population growth, and a dependence of that population on agriculture, fragmen- tation of holdings and fields has been an on-going process, more especially as the inheritance practice favours it. This can be seen from the pattern of landholding, even though this has not been described in detail.


These points take us back to the starting point of this paper. If land tenure studies focused only on the nature of rights and on a static picture of customary tenure, they would lead to only superficial understanding of the land tenure system and block the formulation of coherent and effective agrarian policies. There has to be a serious review of the dynamic aspects of the land tenure system and the complex interaction between land tenure and other components of the agrarian system. This observation has particular significance as successive land legislation in Nigeria, including the 1978 Land Use Act, demonstrates a myopic focus on the nature of land ownership and does not seem to be based on a careful review of the land tenure pattern and problems. It also reflects on the need for a land tenure policy that takes into account the fact that the land tenure system is in a transitory stage between communal rights and exclusive individual ownership and that a planned and selective introduction of capital and technology is required to maintain a reasonable balance between land tenure and farmers’ social and economic security.

REFERENCES

1. Akabane, H. (1970). Traditional pattern of land occupancy in Black Africa, Developing Economics, 8, pp. 161-79.

2. Allan, W. (1965). The African husbandman, London, Oliver and Boyd, pp. 36&74.

3. Allot, A. N. (1963). Legal development and economic growth in Africa. In: Changing laws in developing countries (Anderson, J. N. D. (Ed.)), London, Allen and Unwin, pp. 194-209.

4. Barrows, R. L. (1973). Individualised land tenure and African agricultural development: Alternatives for policy, Land Tenure Centre Research Paper No. 85, Madison, University of Wisconsin.

5. Brock, B. (1969). Customary land tenure. Individualisation and agricultural development in Uganda, East African Journal of Rural Development, 2, pp. l-28.

6. East African Royal Commission (1955). Report of the East Ajkican Royal Commission 1953-195.5, Cmd. 9475, London, Her Majesty’s Stationery Office.

7. Ega, L. A. (1979). Security of tenure in a transitory farming system: The case of Zaria Villages in Nigeria, Agricultural Administration, 6(4), pp. 287-98.

8. Ega, L. A. (1982). Societal formation and the evaluation of land tenure system in the Zaria Emirate of Northern Nigeria, Agricultural Administra- rion, 13(4), pp. 239948.

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9. Elias, T. 0. (1971). Nigerian Lund Law. (4th ed.), London, Sweet and Maxwell Ltd, p. 7.

10. Famoriyo, S. (1979). Land tenure and agricultural development in Nigeria, Ibadan, NISER, pp. 4464.

11. Lugard, F. 0. (1965). The Dual Mandate in British Tropical Africa. (5th edn.), Hamden. Connecticut, Achon Books, pp. 28&l.

12. Meek, C. K. (1957). Land tenure and land administration in Nigeria and the Camerouns, London, Her Majesty’s Stationery Office, p. 4.

13. Michigan State University (1969). Strategies and recommendation for Nigerian rural development 1969-8.5, CSNRD Report F.M., No. 33, East Lansing, Michigan, pp. 28-31.

14. Mifsud, F. M. (1967). Customary land law in Africa, Rome, FAO. 15. Parsons, K. H. (1971). Customary land tenure and the development of

African agriculture, Land Tenure Centre Research Paper No. 77, Madison, University of Wisconsin, pp. 33-43.

16. Paul, B. D. (1953). Interview techniques and field relationships. In: Anthro- pology Today (Kroeber, A. L. (Ed.)), Chicago, University of Chicago Press, p. 446.

17. Ruxton, F. H. (1916). Muliki Law, London, London University Press, pp. 78, 261.

18. Starns, W. W. (1974). Land tenure among the Hausa, Land Tenure Centre Report No. 104, Madison, University of Wisconsin.

19. Uchendu, V. C. (1970). The impact of changing agricultural technology on African land tenure, Journal of Developing Areas, 4, pp. 477-86.

20. Whyte, W. F. (1976). Research methods for the study of conflict and cooperation, American Sociologists, 11, pp. 208-16.

land acquisition and land transfer in zaria villages in nigeria

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