In a landmark decision on 17 April 2017, the Supreme Court of Nigeria held that foreigners cannot legally and validly own land in Nigeria. This decision is of significant interest for the international investing community. The decision is a curious one and deserves close scrutiny. It was based on the court's interpretation that the Land Use Act provides that all lands in Nigeria are to be held in trust by the governor of each state for the use and benefit of all Nigerians. This note posits that the Supreme Court decision was completely erroneous and that, contrary to that decision, the correct position of the law is that foreigners can lawfully and validly own land in Nigeria provided that they are not enemy aliens.
Sovereign nations generally exert control over land within the individual nation's boundaries. This is done for a variety of reasons including the political and economic. There is nothing wrong with that as the essence of sovereignty lies in exclusivity. Economic considerations, however, demand some level of relaxation of government control on land for investment purposes to galvanise development. Such relaxation of control is usually entrenched in the enabling law that regulates land administration. Nigeria has witnessed such regulatory land instruments operated in different regions of the country from the colonial regime until the unifying Land Use Act of 1978. The Nigerian courts' interpretations of the provisions of that Act have continued to attract controversy, not least the recent Supreme Court decision in Huebner suggesting that aliens cannot hold interest in land in Nigeria. The article dissects that decision, highlighting the social and economic implications with inferences drawn from cognate jurisdictions, arriving at the conclusion that the Supreme Court could not be right in its interpretation of that piece of Nigerian legislation and that the social and economic implications of such decisions cannot be underestimated.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.