land tenure in lagos

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HABITATINTL. Vol. 16, No. I, pp. 3-15,1992 Printed in Great Britain. 0197-3975/92 $5.00 + 0.00 0 1992 Pergamon Press Ltd Land Tenure in Lagos TADE AKIN AINA University of Lagos, Nigeria INTRODUCTION Land plays a major role in human life, not only as an important factor of production, but also as a central determinant of settlement formation. This has become more significant in recent times, particularly in urban settlements, where the availability, distribution and use of land have become key determinants in the provision of one of the most important basic needs of contemporary existence - shelter. The growth and physical expansion of urban settlements which has occurred significantly all over the world in recent times has taken on a more dramatic momentum in those areas that have come to be regarded as the Third World.2 In these regions contemporary urbanisation, which either arose or was stimulated by external contact with the imperialist powers of Western Europe and the USA through trade or direct colonisation, has not only been extremely rapid in nature but also devastating in its impact. The transformations engendered by these processes include not only the expansion of existing and new urban centres, but also the concomitant reduction of rural areas, both in spatial and population sizes. Other changes in areas such as production and consumption, technology and administration have also followed this contemporary capitalist urbanisation. Africa, which has been one of the last regions of the World to be fully affected by this type of change, has also experienced a dramatic phase of urbanisation in the past 40 years.3 One crisis with which it has grappled as a result of this has been that of inadequate provision of shelter for the majority of its urban dwellers. Shelter in this sense is seen in terms of the provision of not only the dwelling unit, but also the necessary basic services and infrastructure and the maintenance of appropriate standards. The housing crisis is further complicated by the problem of poverty, both because the nations of Africa are unequally- developed/peripheral capitalist formations, and because consequently, the majority of African urban dwellers are in themselves poor. However, it needs to be pointed out that, in spite of the difficulties posed by the larger crisis of African development in general and the housing crisis in particular, the poor themselves have not remained passive but have attempted to ’ Extensive discussion of the land question can be found in works such as: McAuslan, P. Urban Land and Shelter for the Poor, IIED/Earthscan, London, 1985; Doebele, W.A., “Land Policy”, in: Shelter, SeNIemenr and Development, Rodwin, L. (Editor). Alien & Unwin, Boston, 1987; Gilbert, A. and Ward, P.M., “Land for the Rich, Land for the Poor”, in: The Urbunisution ofrhe Third World, Gugler, J. (Editor). Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1988; and the various articles in Angel, S. et al. (Editors), Lund for Housing the Poor, Select Books, Singapore, 1983. ‘The idea of the “Third World” is used here in preference to other terms such as “underdeveloped” erc., in that it was a term coined by the peoples of the Third World themselves, and it characterises them correctly. See: Worsley, P., The Three Worlds: Culture and World Development. Weidenfeld & Nicolson, London, 1984. ‘Hardoy. J.E. and Satterthwaite, D.. “Third World Cities and the Environment of Poverty”, Geoforum 15(3), 307-333, 1984. 3

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HABITATINTL. Vol. 16, No. I, pp. 3-15,1992 Printed in Great Britain.

0197-3975/92 $5.00 + 0.00 0 1992 Pergamon Press Ltd

Land Tenure in Lagos

TADE AKIN AINA University of Lagos, Nigeria

INTRODUCTION

Land plays a major role in human life, not only as an important factor of production, but also as a central determinant of settlement formation. This has become more significant in recent times, particularly in urban settlements, where the availability, distribution and use of land have become key determinants in the provision of one of the most important basic needs of contemporary existence - shelter. ’

The growth and physical expansion of urban settlements which has occurred significantly all over the world in recent times has taken on a more dramatic momentum in those areas that have come to be regarded as the Third World.2 In these regions contemporary urbanisation, which either arose or was stimulated by external contact with the imperialist powers of Western Europe and the USA through trade or direct colonisation, has not only been extremely rapid in nature but also devastating in its impact.

The transformations engendered by these processes include not only the expansion of existing and new urban centres, but also the concomitant reduction of rural areas, both in spatial and population sizes. Other changes in areas such as production and consumption, technology and administration have also followed this contemporary capitalist urbanisation.

Africa, which has been one of the last regions of the World to be fully affected by this type of change, has also experienced a dramatic phase of urbanisation in the past 40 years.3 One crisis with which it has grappled as a result of this has been that of inadequate provision of shelter for the majority of its urban dwellers. Shelter in this sense is seen in terms of the provision of not only the dwelling unit, but also the necessary basic services and infrastructure and the maintenance of appropriate standards. The housing crisis is further complicated by the problem of poverty, both because the nations of Africa are unequally- developed/peripheral capitalist formations, and because consequently, the majority of African urban dwellers are in themselves poor.

However, it needs to be pointed out that, in spite of the difficulties posed by the larger crisis of African development in general and the housing crisis in particular, the poor themselves have not remained passive but have attempted to

’ Extensive discussion of the land question can be found in works such as: McAuslan, P. Urban Land and Shelter for the Poor, IIED/Earthscan, London, 1985; Doebele, W.A., “Land Policy”, in: Shelter, SeNIemenr and Development, Rodwin, L. (Editor). Alien & Unwin, Boston, 1987; Gilbert, A. and Ward, P.M., “Land for the Rich, Land for the Poor”, in: The Urbunisution ofrhe Third World, Gugler, J. (Editor). Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1988; and the various articles in Angel, S. et al. (Editors), Lund for Housing the Poor, Select Books, Singapore, 1983.

‘The idea of the “Third World” is used here in preference to other terms such as “underdeveloped” erc., in that it was a term coined by the peoples of the Third World themselves, and it characterises them correctly. See: Worsley, P., The Three Worlds: Culture and World Development. Weidenfeld & Nicolson, London, 1984.

‘Hardoy. J.E. and Satterthwaite, D.. “Third World Cities and the Environment of Poverty”, Geoforum 15(3), 307-333, 1984.

3

4 Tade Akin Aina

provide solutions which we termed in an earlier work “popular responses”.4 These involve the building and provision of shelter for themselves within the means available to them on sites accessible to them through the use of mechanisms which they have devised and which, even though are obviously not the best, still contribute to providing acceptable solutions. These innovations and adaptations involve not only the way the poor construct their houses, the economic and social processes they generate and utilise in their settlements, but more importantly, how they gain access to land - perhaps the most central element of settlement - formation and shelter provision. It is this issue of how the poor gain access to land for shelter as part of the process of urbanisation of rural areas of Africa, and its impact on and implications for the rural areas themselves, that is the concern of this paper. It is also argued that a modification and transformation of the rural basis of relationship to land and tenure through the process of commercialisation was necessary and central to the attempts of the poor in gaining access to building land. The commercialisation process which has occurred, it is further argued, contains dual implications. These are in the sense that while it provides the poor with the only alternative access to building land in the face of the inept efforts of the State and other public institutions and the limitations and incapacity of customary tenure. it also contains serious negative implications in terms of the issue of security of tenure, the nature of ownership and the definition of standards for the shelter provided.

To demonstrate the above points, the rest of this paper is structured along the following broad divisions:

(1) an examination of the process of the commercialisation of land in its most general terms;

(2) an examination of the nature of urbanisation and settlement formation and the land question in L,agos, Nigeria;

(3) the presentation of a case study of the commercialisation of land for the urban poor of Lagos;

(4) finally, a discussion of the options for resolving the issue that arise from the land question to the advantage of the poor, both from the point of view of public policy and community action.

THE PROCESS OF COMMERCIALISATION OF LAND

As the literature on housing the urban poor reveals, one of the emergent long- term trends in the responses engendered by the housing crisis is that of the commercialisation of land and housing tenure (Moser, 1982; Amis, 1984; Akin Aina, 1989). What is meant by commercialisation here is the imposition of transactions based on exchange value rather than use value.

In an earlier work that touches on the issue, it was pointed out that commercialisation implies that land and housing become a source of income or revenue, turning them principally into commodities of some form and thereby creating a rental housing and land market.” This is essentially what it is, although the process operates at two levels, that of a well-developed land and housing market controlled by established capitalist firms, large-scale speculators, and medium-scale entrepreneurs and that of the petty and small-scale efforts of the low-income sector for whom the extra income is a welcome and necessary addition to revenue.

With specific reference to the provision of land for the urban poor, the commercialisation process has received some attention in the work of Baross

‘See Akin Aim (1989). ’ Ibid.

Land Tenure in Lagos 5

(1983, pp. 180-217), who provided a discussion on the issue of the articulation of land supply for popular settlements in Third World cities. In detailing the practices through which prospective house-builders get access to land in urban areas, Baross identified three classes of activities, namely: non-commercial articulation, commercial articulation and administrative articulation.

What is of concern here is the commercial articulation, which Baross identifies as consisting of three forms. These are the provision of miniplots, land rental, and the use of substandard subdivisions. Each of these involves a supply through a market mechanism. The provision of miniplots involves mainly the fragmen- tation of land within existing settlements and their sale in a “once-and-for-all transaction”. This is seen as a form of capitalisation of urban assets by those who own them and who utilise the opportunity of the sale either to invest in better houses or buy land in more secure settlements. The market for miniplots, as has been pointed out, is susceptible to both speculative and high inflationary tendencies. Land rental, on the other hand, involves the rental of the land to prospective users, for residential or other purposes for some period of time at definite rates.

It involves a process of generating some income on the land while awaiting the opportunity for more commercial development or sale. The use of substandard division, that is the division of land into regular but unserviced plots for low- income home-builders, represents the last type of practice. As shall be shown below, all these forms of commercial articulation of land are utilised, albeit in modified forms for the low-income settlements of metropolitan Lagos. The modifications are themselves the product of specifically local conditions and culture. They are perhaps best understood when situated in the context of the nature of the land question in the urban development of Lagos.

URBANISATION AND THE LAND QUESTION IN LAGOS

Lagos, the capital city,” and perhaps the most important urban settlement in Nigeria, if not on the West African coast, typifies a case of urban development in a rural context. The settlement has grown from the 19th Century fishing and agricultural settlement to become a late 20th Century metropolitan centre. This growth has included the emergence of a complex of ports, industrial estates, commercial houses, small-scale industrial activities, and the acquisition of the multiple status of the administrative, commercial, cultural and economic headquarters for both Nigeria and Lagos State.

The changes have also involved massive population and spatial growth, so that the estimated population of less than 5000 persons in 1800 (Ohadike, 1968, p. 71) has grown to an estimated population of over 4.5 million in 1980 (Lagos State Regional Plan, 1980-2000, p. 3). Most of the changes that have occurred are traceable to the colonisation of Nigeria and the choice of Lagos as the administrative, political and economic headquarters since the amalgamation of Nigeria in 1914. This choice ensured massive development of infrastructures and services and the siting of several economic and other socio-cultural institutions and facilities, all of which further multiplied the development of Lagos in relation to the changes in Nigeria’s economic development process.

Concomitant spatial development has occurred, evidenced by the fact that up to 1901, Lagos covered no more than 4 sq. km,’ but by 1911, it covered

‘Nigeria at the moment operates a system of two capital cities. Abuja, the new Federal Capital Territory, is still under construction, although it has now begun to perform some of its intended functions.

‘See Sada, P.O. and Adefolalu, A.A., “Urbanisation and Problems of Urban Development”, in Lagos: the Development ofan African City, Aderibigbe, A.B. (Editor), p. 79. Longman, Lagos, 1975.

1.5 sq. km, expanding to 51.8 sq. km in 1920, about 62 sq. km in 1927 and 63 sq. km in 1931. ’ As of 1967, total land area was 70 sq. km, while the most recent available figures show that the current land area is about 1088 sq. km, of which some 209 sq. km are covered by water and unreclaimed mangrove swamps. ’ This growth in land area reflects the expansion from an aggregation of settlements, mainly on Lagos Island and Ikoyi, first to the farming and fishing lands of Ebute-Metta, Yaba and Apapa, and. in more recent times, engulfing the previously predominantly agricultural lands of Ikeja division and moving towards Ikorodu Town, Badagry Road and Abeokuta Road.

According to Adalemo (1981), specific areas of metropolitan Lagos can be seen as experiencing phenomenal and sustained growth. He points out that, while older settlements within the metropolis such as Lagos Island, Ikoyi, Iddo, Ebute Metta, parts of Yaba and Surulere seemed to have stabilised, growth points exist on the west and northeast of the metropolis. In fact, such is the growing nature of the metropolis that in some of the settlements identified by Adalemo (1981) as growth points, land values have risen between 75% and 400% within the past five years (1985-1989).

While the physical nature of metropolitan Lagos -particularly the prevalence of water barriers, lagoons, swamps and flooded depressions - to some extent determines the pattern of settlement formation, two important characteristics pointed out by Adalemo (1981) are central to our understanding. These have to do with what he termed the “amoebic nature” of the city’s expansion. The metropolis in its growth often either wipes out and completely absorbs the hitherto rural areas, or it encircles them in their original form in a cyst-like manner, preserving them with their predominantly rural, unplanned and impoverished characteristics. These are also often deprived of essential basic services and utilities. It is settlements like these that often constitute a particular type of low-income settlement within the metropolis, deprived in most respects and constituting an outlet for land supply for housing the poor.

Of course, this kind of land supply is neither inexhaustible nor easily accessible. Apart from the physical limitations posed by the terrain, which often means that in such situations the most easily available land is that which is located in flood plains, flooded depressions and swamps, access to land is also limited by institutional factors such as tenure. the demand for the land and its costs.

The discussions above on the rapid nature of the urbanisation of Lagos and the limitations posed by the physical nature of the terrain provide a necessary context for understanding the different dimensions of the land question in Lagos. Central to these are the nature of tenure, the extent of commercialisation and the costs of land.

Tenure

Up to 1978, when a land use law was promulgated to provide a uniform mode of access to land in Nigeria, land tenure consisted mainly of two forms - customary law and the received colonial law. This dual mechanism thus created a very complex and often confused system of transactions and interpretations which

‘See Adalemo. A.. “The Physical Growth of Metropolitan L,agos and Associated Planning Problems”. in: Spatial E,rpan.sion and Concontifanf Problems in fhe Lagos ~~efropol~turz Arm. Oyeleye. D.A. (Editor). Occasional Paper No. I. Department of Geography, University of Lagos, December 1981.

“See Lagos State Development and Property Corporation, 50 Years ~~~o~~~~g nnd P~~~z~i~g ~eveiop~zent in Metropolitan Lagos: Chalienges of the Eighties. LSDPC. Lagos.

Land Tenure in Lagos 7

have often been a source of great obstacles to the access of the poor to land for housing. The customary land tenure system refers essentially to the ways by which rights are held in land under the indigenous, predominantly agricultural, social structures. It is based essentially on the specific patterns of inheritance, lineage system and location within any community. It operates mainly in the southern regions of Nigeria and vests absolute ownership of land in the stool which is the authority of the chief, the entire community (which may include more than one village), the family, or the individual.” While ensuring the rights of members of the community or family to the use of the land, the system restricts the capacity to dispose of the land, except through the consent of the relevant corporate unit.

The problem that this has always posed is who the effective representative of the unit with the authority to dispose of the land is. In some cases, the chief is so defined; in others, it is the eldest members or member of the family. The result of this lack of clarity - and at times the failure by the person disposing of the land to gain the consent of the rest of the corporate unit - was a situation of endless litigations and violent disputes in Lagos. This often limited the access of the poor migrant in Lagos to land for housing, since families have often been known to have connived to sell the same lot of land to different persons through different representatives of such families. Another norm of the customary land tenure which often posed problems is the distinction made in all indigenous communities between ‘strangers’ and members of the community.” Again this distinction contributed to the restrictions placed on providing land to migrants for building.

The other form of tenure that applied in Lagos was through what has been called Statutory Law. This referred to the received British Law governing land transactions. One of the main objectives of this legal system was to protect the individual’s rights to freely acquire or dispose of land. It was also meant to ensure the access of the State to land through powers of acquisition. This legal system in colonial times operated mainly in all transactions between indigenes and foreigners or between indigenes who so chose. Again for the urban poor, or the poor migrant to Lagos, this was effectively an irrelevant system as they neither sought land from the government nor did the government make any such provisions. Where the government provided land, it was either for government projects or the creation of housing estates for the indigenous elites and the expatriate communities.

The Lund Use Act of 1978 was aimed at creating a uniform law governing access to land with the objectives of making such access available to all, reducing confusion in ownership of land, minimising rancour and litigations, and creating an equitable land-ownership system. It was again mainly to the benefit of the elites and the better-off members of society. They were the same people who could effectively acquire land under the customary tenure system, withstand any attendant litigation and effectively take possession of such lands. These same persons took advantage of the Lund Use Act which ceded the ownership of all land in the State, and where such an arrangement proved troublesome they found loopholes in the law. They often effected this with the active connivance of lawyers, landowners and the public officials responsible for land registration, the most common strategy being to backdate their transactions so that they appear to have been carried out before the Land Use Act came into effect in 1978. In such manner, they by-passed the restriction on the size of holdings and other such terms of the 1978 law.

“‘See Famoriyo, S., “Some Problems of the Customary Land Tenure System in Nigeria”, Nigerian Institute of Social and Economic Research, Ibadan, Reprint Series No. 89. p. 1; also Olawoye, C.O., Title ro Land in Nigeria. Evans Brothers, Lagos, 1974.

“Ibid.. p. 23.

8 Tade Akin Aina

For the poor the new system was more difficult. They were not used to negotiations with officialdom. There was too much paperwork and the land costs were considered too high with no provision for payment in instalments. Also, applications involved paying what seemed to them a substantial fee which still did not guarantee them allocation of the land. Apart from the problems surrounding allocations, such as the qualification of stable jobs and income, there was also the knowledge that it always took some time before effective occupation of allocated government land could be taken. In the meantime, such an allottee would have paid the full costs and maybe even other ‘development charges’. For the poor, the purchase or securing of land involved the need for immediate occupation and building of some sort of structure. The means to wait while government officials complete their allocation, subdivision and provision of services did not exist. It should also be remembered that the standards of construction for government sites tend to be those that the poor can neither reach nor actually wish to attain. Thus, neither the customary land tenure nor the statutory law system favours or benefits the urban poor, whose only resort is to informal means of land acquisition or attaining access to land.

Further obstructions to the access of the urban poor, apart from that constituted by the existent systems of land tenure, include the pricing of urban land. For instance, the cost of publicly-owned land, which in most cases is the most subsidised, has risen in parts of Lagos from 12 Nigerian shillings and six pence per square yard in 1959 to 9 naira in 1978, an increase of 620%) using 1959 as the base year (LSDPC, n.d., p. 16). Private lands have also experienced similar if not higher rises in different parts of Lagos. Access to land for the urban poor is therefore attained through a combination of informal, though commer- cialised, means such as the forms of articulation identified earlier.

Even while these are utilised, such land is often in peri-urban location quite far from the main centres of Metropolitan and other economic activities and involving long hours and high costs of transportation. In many other cases, the various settlements of the poor are located in very difficult terrains - on swamps, slopes and flooded terrain within the interstices of the main city. This is the situation of the low-income settlement within which we examine the specific process of the commercialisation of land.

THE COMMERCIALISATION OF LAND FOR THE URBAN POOR OF LAGOS. THE CASE OF OLALEYE-IPONRI VILLAGE

Source of data

The materials presented here are based on data from a study of two low-income settlements in metropolitan Lagos carried out between mid-1984 and early 1985. A total of 700 heads of households selected through systematic sampling were studied although use is made here of data from only a sample of 438 which come from the Olaleye-Iponri settlement. The data was collected through multi- instrumental media which included free interviews with strategic informants, life-histories, documentary analysis, a structured observation check-list, and a 9%item interview schedule.

Brief history of site of study

The site of study is Olaleye-Iponri Village. The title ‘Village’ which accompanies its name is a reflection of the development of metropolitan Lagos, which we have discussed above. Olaleye-Iponri Village is located in the Lagos Mainland local government area (see Fig. 1). Although it is now referred to and considered as

Land Tenure in Lagos 9

Fig. I. Mainland local government area - innd 14.~ map.

one settlement, it was originally two communities, Olaleye and Iponri, which have gradually been merged over the years for administrative and political purposes. However, in response to the continuing perception of the residents, who talk as if there are two settlements in one, the data presented here are under the headings of Olaleye and Iponri.

The settlements, located in a terrain which consists of flooded depressions which slope into swampy land, were originally founded about 150 years ago (Olaleye Village around 1830, Iponri around 1878). Initial growth began with the construction of the various phases of the Railway Line, particularly the extension to Apapa around the 1940s and 1950s. It was then that the first wave of migrants, who served as construction workers, labourers and staff of the Railways, and the petty traders came. Official figures for Olaleye Village showed the extent of this growth. In 1967, the Lagos Executive Development Board estimated the total population at approximately 2500 persons. These people lived in 279 buildings on 31.6 acres and consisted mainly of “. . . labourers, vagrants, and many people of the low income group”. I2

“This was from an unpublished report of the Lagos Executive Development Board, “The Abule-Nla Redevelopment Scheme”.

10 Tade Akin Aina

The settlements have grown since the end of the Nigerian Civil War in 1970 and the period of the economic boom occasioned by the revenue from petroleum exports. In 1983, it was estimated in another survey conducted by Government officials that the settlement contained over 20,090 inhabitants on a total land area of 35.316 hectares.

Socio-economic characteristics of residents

The residents of Olaleye-Iponri are mainly migrants to Lagos. Natives of Lagos State make up less than 5% of the sample. The majority of residents - over half of the sample - are Yoruba, from the States adjacent to Lagos. Igbo respondents from the Bendel and Eastern States account for another quarter, while the rest are mainly members of smaller Nigerian ethnic groupings.” The majority of the respondents can be described as long-term residents - about three-fifths of them have lived in the settlement for over 10 years, while another fifth have lived there for between five and 10 years. Large households are most common. Two-thirds of the sample consists of households of not less than five persons and in certain cases these go up to eleven persons. The tendency is also for large numbers of children. Families with three or more children, constitute a majority, while those with six or more children account for an important proportion. Most of the households, about 60% occupy just one room.

Economic life in the settlement is dominated by what has been called either the informal sector or petty commodity production. It consists mainly of petty production, petty services, petty artisanal, maintenance and crafts activities and casual work. It is therefore mainly a settlement of the self-employed and workers. Those who are self-employed constitute almost 40% of the respon- dents, making up the largest single category of employment. Formal employ- ment accounts for the rest, but the Civil Service is the most important sector of this, as it makes up about 30%. The rest is shared between those employed either in the private sector or in the parastatals. Residents in the sample are predominantly low-income earners, with about three out of every five earning less than 240 naira per month and at least four out of every five earning less than 300 rzaira per month.”

Tenants constitute the most important type of housing tenure, comprising nearly three-quarters of the sample, while landlords make up about 23%. Residents who claim family compound or communal dwelling status come to about 4%.

LAND CONDITIONS IN THE SETTLEMENT

Under this heading, discussions will focus on a brief description of land-use in the settlement, land tenure and access to land, and landowner-tenant relations.

Land use

The main uses to which the land at Olaleye-Iponri are put include those of providing residential dwellings and commercial activities, and public use such as the adjacent Iponri police barracks and the school. The land is also used for places of worship such as churches and mosques. The available official figures provided by the Department of Urban and Regional Planning of the Lagos State

“There are about 250 ethnic groups in Nigeria and most of these are small in population when compared with the three big groups, Yoruba, Igbo and Hausa-Fulani.

lJAt the time of study (1984-1985). 1 naira was about US$l, but with the devaluation that has occurred since 1986. (US$l) is about 7 naira as of mid-July, 1989.

Land Tenure in Lagos 11

Government for the area for 1983-1984 are as follows: 65.6% of the land or 23.18 hectares are used for residential purposes, while 2.4% or 0.85 hectares are used for commercial purposes. This figure is, however, susceptible to further questioning as our observations in the field reveal a vast mixture of residential and commercial purposes in the use of dwellings. About 9.24% of the land, or 3.23 hectares, are used for public and semi-public purposes. These include the school and the police barracks on the periphery of the settlements and the places of worship. Roads, on the other hand, account for about 2.24 hectares, which is about 6.3%. Undeveloped land and open spaces account for 6.90 hectares or 19.5%, while the service industry category make up 0.516 hectares or about 1.5%.” All in all, land use in the settlement is mixed and varied.

Land tenure and access to land

The earliest basis of tenure on the land derives from the customary system. Settlement folklore tells the story of the origin of each of the settlements. It describes how Olaleye Village was founded when the Oloto of Oto, one of the major land owning indigenous chieftaincy families, gave the parcel of land that makes up the area to a certain Ajao Olaleye to use as farmland. The folklore tells how Ajao Olaleye then systematically invited other settlers, who in turn also invited their own acquaintances, thus leading to the formation of a small settlement. For Iponri, the same sort of story is told of a certain Abegundoko who received his land also from the Oloto of Oto around 1878. The growth of early Iponri also took the same pattern as Olaleye Village with Abegundoko inviting other settlers to join him in farming the land.

Since these early beginnings, available evidence points to the intense commercialisation of the land. The Olaleye family has, since the initial period of offering land grants, leased out large portions of the land. In fact, we were reliably informed that at least two-thirds of the landlords in Olaleye Village hold the lease tenancy agreement and receipt issued by the Olaleye family. Apart from the Olaleye family, the only other landowners of any significance consist of six or seven Lagos families of Sierra Leonian descent. ”

The process of commercialisation has involved some form of modification of the forms of articulation described earlier on. It consists mainly of mini-plots and the extensive fragmentation of land not sold outright, but rented out, leased or sublet. Of course, the whole area, in terms of its relationship to the definition of standards by the state, consists mainly of what can be termed ‘substandard subdivisions’. A brief examination of the structure of tenure in the settlement might illustrate these points better.

On the whole, freehold titles of all types come to just over one-fifth of land- holding in the settlement. This accounts for about 17% in Olaleye and about 28% in Iponri. Most of these of course belong to the descendants of the Olaleye family and the earliest settlers.

The most common form of tenure is a short-term lease. Such leases, particularly those for less than five years, account for over half (about 56%) of all responses in Olaleye and half of those in Iponri. Other short-term leases of between five and 10 years account for about 6% of the Olaleye-Iponri sample. There are also leases of medium-term duration of between 11 and 50 years, which account for about 8% of the responses, while long-term leases of between 51 and 99 years represent only about 12% of the sample. The prevalence of very

15Urban and Regional Planning Division, Lagos State Government, Master Hun for Metropolitan Lagos (Implementation Phase): Final Report on Olaleye-Iponri Urban Renewal Plan, Department of Lands and Housing, Office of the Governor, Lagos State. p. 11.

“These are descendants of freed slaves who were settled in Free Town, Sierra Leone and who returned to Lagos in the late 19th Century. Their offspring featured prominently among the early educated Lagos elite.

12 Tade Akin Aim

short-term leases in the settlement requires some explanation, particularly when it is realised that annual leaseholds for shelter or those of less than five years are an unusual phenomenon in customary Yoruba land tenure practice.

What this reflects for this particular settlement is the pattern of land ownership and control of land, the extensive nature of its commercialisation, expressed in the widespread phenomenon of sub-letting the land, and a certain uneasy air about the overall security of tenure of the whole settlement.

The very short-term leases, it was revealed to us, are mainly a post-1970 phenomenon in terms of common occurrence. Part of it represents a specific response of the urban poor to the cost and availability of land. This is expressed through extensive sub-letting of the land, a situation which accounts for a number of landlords not having any direct links with the original landowners but paying rather to co-landlords from whom they derive access. In such arrange- ments, a single standard plot of between 120 and 100 ft by 60 ft is shared between two or even three persons. The resultant ‘mini-plots’ thus come in sizes of 80 by 60 ft, 60 by 60 ft, 60 by 40 ft and 40 by 20 ft, and of course constrain what can be built on them.

The short-term leases are also accounted for by a process of land renting. This is reflected in the activities of one of the few large landowners in the settlement. This particular family, apart from being landlords (having developed a medium- income estate of about seven bungalows), have rented out a large portion of their land-holding for residential and commercial purposes to tenants who are instructed not to construct any permanent structures on them. The result is a line of shanties and shacks built of corrugated iron sheets, zinc, woodboards and planks. True to the purpose of the land-rental mechanism, this device represents part of the family’s attempt at protecting their land from government acquisition, squatting, and encroachment by other landlords. Also, it ensures that the family can respond rapidly to speculative bids for their land at very short notice. Such response would not be possible with more durable structures.

This last phenomenon of short-term leases due to sub-letting and land rental can be seen as containing far-reaching implications both for the security of tenure and also the nature of structures that are erected. It is quite clear that such arrangements, while providing the urban poor with some form of immediate access to land and shelter, limits what they can do. For instance, a process of consolidation, house-improvement and upgrading is seriously limited by the very short tenure and more importantly by the stipulation in some cases that no durable structures be erected on the land.

Landowner-tenant relations

Although most of the large landowners neither live on, nor regularly frequent the settlement, a form of relationship exists between them and the owners of the dwelling units. The most general form of this is that of limited or no contact. For a significant number of owners of the dwellings, their landowner is represented by a caretaker who lives on the settlement either as a small-plot owner or a dwelling-unit owner. In some other cases, the contact with the landowner is further removed by the fact that the dwelling-unit owner has sub-let the land from another owner who himself does not pay directly to the landowner but only to a caretaker. More interestingly, since the enactment of the Land Use Act of 1978, some of the large absentee landowners have stopped collecting their payments directly. The arrangement by some of the dwelling-unit owners has therefore been to pay this into the estate of the said owners.

Some of the other landowners make their presence in the settlement obvious on a regular basis. An interesting case is the land-renting family mentioned

Land Tenure in Lagos 13

earlier that has a representative on the settlement on a virtually daily basis. This is to ensure the prompt payment of its rent and compliance with its “no durable structures” order. A pool of thugs is kept at the ready by them to ensure effective compliance through violent action. Predictably, the feeling that is held towards this particular family is that of a combination of fear, deference and concealed hatred. This in brief represents the nature of land conditions and access to land in Olaleye-Iponri. The next task is the examination of the implications of the dynamics and relationships described above for the improved access of the urban poor to land for shelter.

CONCLUSIONS: OPTIONS AND IMPLICATIONS FOR ACTION

Perhaps the main point that has emerged from the discussion so far is that the established systems of tenure are not advantageous to the situation of the urban migrant poor. Another point that has emerged is that, in spite of the limitations posed by the established tenure systems, the majority of dwelling-owning members of the urban poor have devised other informal means by which they gain access to land for housing. These means are of course informed by the process of commercialisation which opens up gaps in the formal and customary relationships to land through providing alternative devices. The study has also shown both the negative and positive elements of these alternative devices. These essentially are that, while they open up access for the low-incomed to procure their own plots in the sizes they can use and at costs and terms they can afford within a reasonable time period, some aspects of the process also limit the possibilities for consolidation, owner-upgrading and housing improvement. The quesion then is, in the face of the current economic crises which Third-World cities face and the problems experienced by the urban poor: how can the advantages discovered be reinforced and the disadvantages minimised? The answers to this question lead us into the sphere of options and action. And as it is clear to any serious observer that this is dependent on political action, as the vested interests that are related to land tend to be powerful and often quite resistant to change and reform.

What needs to be pointed out in this connection is the failure of the established tenure systems to deliver land to the urban poor and the need for an effective and socially-relevant land reform exercise. In the Nigerian context, this needs to go beyond the formalist paper exercise of the 1978 legislation. In terms of the spirit of that law, the objectives of minimising land concentration were laudable, but the operation of the Act in terms of the delivery of land has been appalling. It is this operational failure that has made all those who detest the spirit of this law to call for its abolition, in order to return to the old system of unlimited land- holding and acquisition. What concerns us here is that the 1978 Act, without realising its intent remains elitist and biassed in favour of the middle and landowning classes. In its very operation, the cumbersome bureaucratic demands and extensive involvement of state governments have limited its benefits to the majority of urban residents - the poor. The mechanisms that were set up to implement it have turned out to be more concerned with income- generation rather than the provision of land as a social good. It is this type of overhauling and adjustment that is required with regard to land policy and legislation.

However, it needs to be pointed out that this type of policy action needs to be considered in terms of a battery of related actions. Land is a finite good and any attempt at ensuring its provision for one section of society needs to ensure that such action limits its concentration and its storage in terms of undeveloped land. The point here is that the range of institutions, actions, policies and legislations

14 Tade Akin Aina

available for reform and transformation has become quite extensive and is available in the literature.17 The problem has to do with the limitations imposed by politics and the political system. In this regard, what can the poor do for themselves? Several things.

There is the need for the realisation of the effectiveness of collective organisation and action. Dwellers in low-income settlements need to organise themselves into groups for the promotion and defence of their rights and interests either in the area of housing and land tenure, housing construction, provision of basic services and/or economic activities. Through collective organisation and action, dwellers in low-income settlements can ensure that they no longer remain as passive objects of policy but rather become active subjects with concrete inputs.

As the accumulating evidence shows, this is already happening all over the Third World. This way they not only develop political experience related to the direct pursuit of their interests, they also gain some form of individual and collective self-confidence. Their chances of success in the pursuit of any specific action are also more enhanced as they develop and build coalitions among progressive groups and sectors both within and outside their class boundaries. It is only this way that some meaingful progress can be made in tackling the land question and its effects on the urban poor.

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Adalemo, 1.A.. “The Physical Growth of Metropolitan Lago\ and Associated Planning Problems”. in: Spatial Expansion and Concomifanr Problems in the Lago.s Metropolitan Area, Oyeleye. D.A. (Editor). Department of Geography, University of Lagos. 1981.

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Amis, P., “Squatter or Tenants: the Commercialisation of Unauthorised Housing in Nairobi”, World Devl. 12. 87-96, 1984.

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“Although I do not agree with all the positions, some of the very useful recent contributions on policy include: Doebele (1987). op. cit.; also Doebele. W.A., “The Provision of Land for the Urban Poor: Concepts, Instruments and Prospects”, in: Angel, S. et al. (Editors), op. cit., pp. 348-374; Powelson. J.P., “Land Tenure and Land Reform: Past and Present”, Lund Use Policy 4(2). 111-120, April 1987; Sohman, M., “Informal Land Acquisition and the Urban Poor in Alexandria”, Third World Planning Review 9(l). pp. 21-39, February 1987; Udo, R.K., “Land Policy for Effective Management of the National Economy”, University of Ibadan Inaugural Lecture, 1976-1977, 1980; Adeniyi, E.O., “The Need for Urban and Suburban Land Policy in Nigeria,” in: Nigerian Economic Society, Vrbanisation and Nigerian Economic Development, Proc. 1977 Annual Conf. Nigerian Economic Society; Opuni Asiama. S., “Land for Housing the Urban Poor in Africa - some Policy Options”, in: Housing Africa’s Urban Poor, Amis. P. and Lloyd. P. (Editors), op. cit.; see also Angel’s chapter in Angel, S. er al., op. cit. and the chapter on recommendations in same volume.

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