Land Grabbers And The Erosion of Property Rights In Nigeria

Dr. MUIZ BANIRE SAN

The plight of innocent property owners at the hands of land grabbers has become one of the most disturbing trends in the country today. This menace demands the urgent attention of government, before it destroys public confidence in property ownership, law enforcement and the administration of justice altogether.

The way these land grabbers now operate gives the frightening impression that in certain spaces,there is no government at all, or that where government exists, its institutions have become too weak, too compromised, or too indifferent to protect innocent citizens. This is not an exaggeration.

The brazenness with which some of these individuals operate makes one wonder whether the right to own property still enjoys the protection our laws promise.For many Nigerians, acquiring land is no ordinary transaction. It represents years of savings, sacrifice and deferred gratification. Some work their entire productive lives before they can afford a modest parcel of land on which to build a home. Some borrow money. Some sell other assets. Some pool retirement benefits, cooperative contributions and family resources.

Others inherit the property from generations before them. Whatever the route, land remains one of the most valuable assets available to the average Nigerian. It is therefore tragic that after a citizen has legitimately acquired land, paid the purchase price, secured documentation, perhaps even began development , a stranger can suddenly appear, mobilise thugs, and attempt to seize the property by force. In some cases, the lawful owner has been in peaceful possession for decades before armed persons arrive with bulldozers and a strange claim of ownership.

Ordinarily, land disputes should be resolved through lawful process. Where two parties claim competing interests in the same property, the proper forum is a court of law: parties produce title documents, trace their roots of title, tender survey plans, call witnesses, and allow an impartial judge to decide who holds the superior interest.

That is what civilisation requires. That is what the rule of law demands. Unfortunately, the modern land grabber rarely begins with law. He begins with force. In the anatomy of land grab, the first line of attack is usually deployment of thugs. They invade the property, destroy fences, demolish structures, beat workers, chase away artisans, and sometimes establish a physical presence on the land, erecting makeshift structures overnight, apparently believing that possession violently obtained will later strengthen their claim. If intimidation succeeds, the matter ends there for the victim who lacks the resources or courage to resist. But where the owner holds firm, a more dangerous stage often begins: some land grabbers turn to unscrupulous security personnel for assistance. This is where the problem becomes truly alarming.

Law enforcement exists to protect citizens and prevent crime, not to serve as a private enforcement arm for anyone claiming ownership of a disputed property. Yet complaints abound of civil disputes being converted into criminal allegations simply to intimidate one party. Suddenly, the genuine owner receives an invitation from a police formation many kilometres away. Allegations of criminal trespass, malicious damage, forgery or threat to life begin to surface,often against a person who has occupied the property for years, sometimes decades.

Where the owner refuses to abandon his land, threats of arrest may follow, and are sometimes carried out. Citizens are detained, transported across jurisdictions, and forced to spend enormous sums on lawyers and logistics, all because they insist on defending land they legitimately own. This practice must stop. The criminal justice system must never become an instrument for resolving what are, at bottom, civil disputes. Where genuine criminality exists, forgery, violence, assault, destruction of property, law enforcement has every right and duty to intervene.

But ownership of land is primarily a civil question, and security agencies must resist being drawn into adjudicating it. The police station cannot substitute for the land registry or the courtroom. The emerging scenario is that the nefarious activity is now assuming a sophisticated criminal enterprise. The image of the land grabber as a neighbourhood thug with a handful of miscreants is now outdated. Today, many operate like organised criminal enterprises, with access to lawyers, surveyors, document processors and other collaborators.

Their operations often involve forged instruments, manipulated surveys, fabricated receipts, and doctored deeds. Recently, I encountered a case that laid this danger bare: documents presented as court judgments appeared to have been altered or outright forged for use in a property dispute. Pause and consider the implications. A court judgment is among the most solemn instruments in the administration of justice.

Citizens must be able to trust its authenticity. If criminal networks can fabricate or alter judicial decisions and deploy them as weapons in land disputes, we are no longer merely confronting land grabbing, we are witnessing an assault on the integrity of the justice system itself. This calls for urgent technological intervention.

In this digital age, courts should be able to build secure platforms for verifying the authenticity of judgments and orders. Every judgment should carry features enabling independent authentication, so that lawyers, litigants, banks, government agencies and members of the public can confirm whether a decision exists and whether its contents match the official record. A system in which a fraudulent document can subject innocent citizens to years of litigation before detection is simply unacceptable, more so where even the certification is fake, or a court official is compromised to certify it as genuine.

The same concern applies to survey plans, which are central to land transactions. Allegations of fake, overlapping or manipulated surveys are common. A person may suddenly appear with a survey plan describing a piece of land another has occupied for decades, sometimes describing a far larger parcel than the original, fabricated specifically to hijack more land than was ever legitimately claimed.

Survey authorities must modernise their verification systems so that coordinates, survey numbers and records can be authenticated quickly; government can no longer rely on manual archives and bureaucratic procedures that leave the door open to manipulation. Land registries require similar reform. Land grabbing thrives on the opacity of land administration, incomplete or fragmented records, unregistered transactions left pending for years, the same property sold to multiple buyers, and, in some registries, officials who mutilate, alter or remove authentic documents from the record entirely.

All of this creates fertile ground for fraud. Nigeria needs a comprehensive modernisation of land administration: digitised property records, faster title searches, prompt verification of registered interests, and Geographic Information Systems integrated with land-registration databases, so that disputes or encumbrances are visible to any purchaser conducting a proper search. Government must make fraud difficult. The most concerning and worrisome aspect of the menace is when the courts become a weapon. The judiciary remains the legitimate institution for resolving property disputes, and recourse to court is entirely appropriate where genuine competing claims exist.

But the judicial process itself must not become another weapon in the hands of professional land grabbers. Too often, persons with questionable claims approach the courts with incomplete facts, fabricated documents, or carefully constructed narratives. Where proceedings are commenced without all relevant parties before the court, orders may be obtained that ultimately affect people who never had a chance to state their case.

Some judges, regrettably, fall for these tactics, a reality that demands vigilance and integrity from the bench. Applications involving possession, demolition, eviction or other irreversible consequences deserve particularly careful scrutiny. Courts should insist on full disclosure and clear proof connecting the applicant to the property in question.