The government has been urged to repeal the Land Use Act of 1978, because it shows the government’s overbearing tendency and takes its attention away from things that are more relevant to the development and growth of the economy.

This was disclosed by a quantity surveyor, property developer and President of EAA-Proid Ltd, Mr Toju Emiko, in a recent interaction with Property and Environment in Lagos. He also added that the law had been keeping the government away from the regulatory role it was meant to be playing in the relationship that existed between land owners and those who wished to acquire them.

“The Land Use Act of 1978 typifies that government is exercising too much control on many things, while it is neglecting the most important things such as provision of infrastructural amenities like good roads, housing provision, among others; the kind of capacity that the government is expected to have means that it is not supposed to be involved majorly in this area.

“The government should therefore thin off from some of these issues and allow the private sector to become involved. Coming out with the Land Use Act of 1978 is an extension of that overbearing tendency of the government, which always comes up in this part of the world,” said Mr Emiko.

Speaking further, Mr Emiko, who is also a member of the senate of the Nigerian Institute of Quantity Surveyor (NIQS), Lagos State Chapter, insisted that “the law should be repealed because it has created a lot of bureaucracy which has made land to be more difficult and complicated to acquire.”

He opined that the law, in addition to other problems, had also kept the government away from the regulatory role it was supposed to be playing in the area of the relationship that existed between land owners and those who wished to acquire them.

“It is also keeping the government from performing its basic obligation of providing infrastructure. So, in my opinion, I think the law should the repealed, and the government is urged to loosen its grip on land generally, said Mr Emiko, while also insisting that, “For the government to even impose its will on people through various means such as the LUA is undemocratic, but the LAU has given the government power to do that.”