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International Journal of
Law
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VOL. 8, ISSUE 6 (2022)
The legal regime of digital registration of land in Nigeria
Authors
Ahiakwo Grace Abraham
Abstract
Section 1 of the Land Use Act provides for voluntary registration of title. The issuance of the certificate of occupancy is an evidence of title and not an instrument of grant in itself. In many cases, certificate of occupancy had been wrongly issued to applicant when the customary owner had not been properly divested of his or her title in land and this has led to the court declaring certificate of occupancy as void or a worthless piece of paper. Recently, the Supreme Court case of Abba v Abaiji has towered and unraveled the Governor’s inherent power to rectify anomalies in the issuance of certificate of occupancy. The article found out that there are challenges and issues to the registration of land in some states in Nigeria and that the protracted duration of manual land registration has been a conundrum as it requires over 14 different steps before perfection of title to land. The article further discovered that a title holder cannot be a legal owner of land without registration of his title. To this end the intent of this article is to examine the legal regime of digital land registration in Nigeria and other jurisdictions. The article shall further discuss proof of title by well authenticated titled documents. The proof of title by well authenticated titled document envisages registration of title of deeds. In conclusion, the article advocated for geographical information system to be implemented in all states in Nigeria as it registers land information of title holders and save these information permanently in a database. The article also recommended for the Land Use Act and also all State land laws be amended to include the compulsory registration of all lands. Furthermore, the article additionally recommended that the cost of land registration should be modest and the duration of registration should be streamlined.
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Pages:235-241
How to cite this article:
Ahiakwo Grace Abraham "The legal regime of digital registration of land in Nigeria". International Journal of Law, Vol 8, Issue 6, 2022, Pages 235-241
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