By Mashe Umaru Gwamna
Minister of Housing and Urban Development, Arc. Ahmed Dangiwa, has pledged his commitment to working with stakeholders and the National Assembly to ensure that the country’s Land Use Act is comprehensively reviewed and amended.
This initiative aims to update the laws guiding housing, access to land, compensation, resettlement, and other land-related matters in line with current realities.
A statement signed and issued by SA, Media to the Hon Minister.
Mark Chieshe.
The Minister gave this assurance during a meeting with a World Bank delegation at the ministry’s headquarters in Abuja.
Arc. Dangiwa observed that key provisions of the Act, including those related to compensation, are obsolete and lack relevance in guiding land-related matters in today’s Nigeria.
“I have already issued a directive to the Directors of the Department of Land and the Department of Urban and Regional Planning to develop a robust framework for engaging the National Assembly and stakeholders in reviewing the Land Use Act.”
While addressing the issue of the housing deficit, the Minister emphasized the importance of instituting a sustainable framework that generates credible, reliable, and scientific data to guide policy formulation.
He stated that he has already moved beyond simply discussing the problem to taking action by engaging the National Population Commission to leverage the forthcoming population census to obtain baseline scientific data about the state of housing conditions in Nigeria.
The visit by the World Bank team aimed to brief the new ministers on the existing collaboration between the World Bank and the ministry, ongoing projects and programs in the housing, land, urban development, and mortgage finance sectors, as well as discuss avenues for further collaborations.
The leader of the delegation, Michael Ilesanmi, noted that discussions with the ministry on land acquisition, resettlement, and compensation began in 2014, with a deepening of these discussions in 2022.
“Land remains a significant issue in the sector. The Land Use Act faces various challenges, and while realities have changed since its enactment in 1978, not much has changed with the Act. I believe there are opportunities to revise the Act to make it more relevant today,” he said.
