A Historical Overview of Enabling Laws Governing Compulsory Land Acquisition and Compensation in Nigeria

It is said that where the right of one person ends, then the right of another commences. This saying buttresses the relevance of the inalienable human rights which accrue to all humans equally. The 1999 Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria as Amended aptly entrenches these fundamental human rights in Chapter Four particularly at sections 43 and 44. Article 17 of the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Right also provides for the right to own immovable property. The Constitution in section 43 guarantees that all citizens of Nigeria may own immovable property without restrictions but then goes ahead to acknowledge the possibility of compulsory land acquisition by the government and provides for a strict procedure for compulsory land acquisition which acknowledges the supremacy of the citizen’s unfettered rights to own property and guarantees an independently valued compensation payable to a dispossessed property owner. The subject of this research is therefore beyond domestic land law. It delves into the constitutional and international law spheres in historically examining what legislations and legal frameworks have been in place to guarantee the right to own immovable properties and what more can be done to strengthen the protection of the right to own immovable properties in Nigeria.